@article{ref1,
title="The impact of precaution and practice on the performance of a risky motor task",
journal="Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)",
year="2013",
author="Keren, Hila and Boyer, Pascal and Mort, Joel and Eilam, David",
volume="3",
number="3",
pages="316-329",
abstract="The association between threat perception and motor execution, mediated by evolved precaution systems, often results in ritual-like behavior, including many idiosyncratic acts that seem irrelevant to the task at hand. This study tested the hypothesis that threat-detection during performance of a risky motor task would result in idiosyncratic activity that is not necessary for task completion. We asked biology students to follow a particular set of instructions in mixing three solutions labeled &quot;bio-hazardous&quot; and then repeat this operation with &quot;non-hazardous&quot; substances (or vice versa). We observed a longer duration of the overall performance, a greater repertoire of acts, longer maximal act duration, and longer mean duration of acts in the &quot;risky&quot; task when it was performed before the &quot;non-risky&quot; task. Some, but not all, of these differences were eliminated when a &quot;non-risky&quot; task preceded the &quot;risky&quot; one. The increased performance of idiosyncratic unnecessary activity is in accordance with the working hypothesis of the present study: ritualized idiosyncratic activities are performed in response to a real or illusionary threat, as a means to alleviate anxiety.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2076-328X",
doi="10.3390/bs3030316",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs3030316"
}