The temporal dynamics of opportunity costs: A normative account of cognitive fatigue and boredom.

The Temporal Dynamics of Opportunity Costs: A Normative Account of Cognitive Fatigue and Boredom

10.1101/2020.09.08.287276 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Mayank Agrawal ◽

Marcelo G. Mattar ◽

Jonathan D. Cohen ◽

Nathaniel D. Daw

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Temporal Structure ◽

Opportunity Costs ◽

Rational Analysis ◽

Cognitive Fatigue ◽

Future Performance ◽

Controlling Behavior ◽

Rigorous Framework ◽

New Framework

AbstractCognitive fatigue and boredom are two phenomenological states widely associated with limitations in cognitive control. In this paper, we present a rational analysis of the temporal structure of controlled behavior, which provides a new framework for providing a formal account of these phenomena. We suggest that in controlling behavior, the brain faces competing behavioral and computational imperatives, and must balance them by tracking their opportunity costs over time. We use this analysis to flesh out previous suggestions that feelings associated with subjective effort, like cognitive fatigue and boredom, are the phenomenological counterparts of these opportunity cost measures, rather then reflecting the depletion of resources as has often been assumed. Specifically, we propose that both fatigue and boredom reflect the competing value of particular options that require foregoing immediate reward but can improve future performance: Fatigue reflects the value of offline computation (internal to the organism) to improve future decisions, while boredom signals the value of exploratory actions (external in the world) to gather information. We demonstrate that these accounts provide a mechanistically explicit and parsimonious account for a wide array of findings related to cognitive control, integrating and reimagining them under a single, formally rigorous framework.

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Investigating the temporal dynamics and underlying mechanisms of cognitive fatigue.

Cognitive fatigue: Multidisciplinary perspectives on current research and future applications. ◽

10.1037/12343-006 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 127-147 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Hans P. A. Van Dongen ◽

Gregory Belenky ◽

James M. Krueger

Keyword(s):

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Cognitive Fatigue ◽

Underlying Mechanisms

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Opportunity costs of drug prohibition

Addiction ◽

10.1046/j.1360-0443.1997.929117917.x ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 92 (9) ◽

pp. 1179-1182

Author(s):

Robert S. Gable

Keyword(s):

Opportunity Costs ◽

Drug Prohibition

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Nonlinear Spatio-Temporal Dynamics and Chaos in Semiconductors

10.1017/cbo9780511524615 ◽

2001 ◽

Cited By ~ 136

Author(s):

Eckehard Schöll

Keyword(s):

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Spatio Temporal

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Effects of Monetary Incentives on Task Switching

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000146 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 59 (4) ◽

pp. 216-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Thomas Kleinsorge ◽

Gerhard Rinkenauer

Keyword(s):

Task Switching ◽

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Reward Processing ◽

General Level ◽

Monetary Incentives ◽

Switch Costs ◽

Expectancy Effect ◽

Reward Expectancy ◽

Trial Basis

In two experiments, effects of incentives on task switching were investigated. Incentives were provided as a monetary bonus. In both experiments, the availability of a bonus varied on a trial-to-trial basis. The main difference between the experiments relates to the association of incentives to individual tasks. In Experiment 1, the association of incentives to individual tasks was fixed. Under these conditions, the effect of incentives was largely due to reward expectancy. Switch costs were reduced to statistical insignificance. This was true even with the task that was not associated with a bonus. In Experiment 2, there was a variable association of incentives to individual tasks. Under these conditions, the reward expectancy effect was bound to conditions with a well-established bonus-task association. In conditions in which the bonus-task association was not established in advance, enhanced performance of the bonus task was accompanied by performance decrements with the task that was not associated with a bonus. Reward expectancy affected mainly the general level of performance. The outcome of this study may also inform recently suggested neurobiological accounts about the temporal dynamics of reward processing.

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