scholarly journals Information about task progress modulates cognitive demand avoidance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Devine ◽  
A. Ross Otto
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Demand ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Activity Avoidance ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Demand Selection ◽  
Cognitively Demanding Tasks ◽  
Temporal Progress

People tend to avoid engaging in cognitively demanding tasks unless it is ‘worth our while’—that is, if the benefits outweigh the costs of effortful action. Yet, we seemingly partake in a variety of effortful mental activities (e.g. playing chess, completing Sudoku puzzles) because they impart a sense of progress. Here, we examine the possibility that information about progress—specifically, the number of trials completed of a demanding cognitive control task, relative to the total number of trials to be completed—reduces individuals’ aversion to cognitively effort activity, across four experiments. In Experiment 1, we provide an initial demonstration that presenting progress information reduces individuals’ avoidance of cognitively demanding activity avoidance using a variant of the well-characterized Demand Selection Task (DST). The subsequent experiments buttress this finding using a more sophisticated within-subjects versions of the DST, independently manipulating progress information and demand level to further demonstrate that, 1) people prefer receiving information about temporal progress in a task, and 2) all else being equal, individuals will choose to exert greater levels of cognitive effort when it confers information about their progress in a task. Together, these results suggest that progress information can motivate cognitive effort expenditure and, in some cases, override individuals’ default bias towards demand avoidance.

scholarly journals Acute Psychosocial Stress Increases Cognitive-Effort Avoidance

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110054
Author(s):  
Mario Bogdanov ◽  
Jonas P. Nitschke ◽  
Sophia LoParco ◽  
Jennifer A. Bartz ◽  
A. Ross Otto
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Acute Stress ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Functional Impairments ◽  
Switching Performance ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Demand Selection ◽  
Control Application ◽  
And Control

Adverse effects following acute stress are traditionally thought to reflect functional impairments of central executive-dependent cognitive-control processes. However, recent evidence demonstrates that cognitive-control application is perceived as effortful and aversive, indicating that stress-related decrements in cognitive performance could denote decreased motivation to expend effort instead. To investigate this hypothesis, we tested 40 young, healthy individuals (20 female, 20 male) under both stress and control conditions in a 2-day study that had a within-subjects design. Cognitive-effort avoidance was assessed using the demand-selection task, in which participants chose between performing low-demand and high-demand variants of a task-switching paradigm. We found that acute stress indeed increased participants’ preference for less demanding behavior, whereas task-switching performance remained intact. Additional Bayesian and multiverse analyses confirmed the robustness of this effect. Our findings provide novel insights into how stressful experiences shape behavior by modulating our motivation to employ cognitive control.

scholarly journals Neural systems of cognitive demand avoidance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceyda Sayalı ◽  
David Badre
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Avoidance Behavior ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Network Activity ◽  
Partial Support ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Demand Selection ◽  
Control Hypothesis ◽  
Reward Network

AbstractCognitive effort is typically aversive, evident in people’s tendency to avoid cognitively demanding tasks. The ‘cost of control’ hypothesis suggests that engagement of cognitive control systems of the brain makes a task costly and the currency of that cost is a reduction in anticipated rewards. However, prior studies have relied on binary hard versus easy task subtractions to manipulate cognitive effort and so have not tested this hypothesis in “dose-response” fashion. In a sample of 50 participants, we parametrically manipulated the level of effort during fMRI scanning by systematically increasing cognitive control demands during a demand-selection paradigm over six levels. As expected, frontoparietal control network (FPN) activity increased, and reward network activity decreased, as control demands increased across tasks. However, avoidance behavior was not attributable to the change in FPN activity, lending only partial support to the cost of control hypothesis. By contrast, we unexpectedly observed that the deactivation of a task-negative brain network corresponding to the Default Mode Network (DMN) across levels of the cognitive control manipulation predicted the change in avoidance. In summary, we find partial support for the cost of control hypothesis, while highlighting the role of task-negative brain networks in modulating effort avoidance behavior.

scholarly journals Do humans prefer cognitive effort over doing nothing?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Wu ◽  
Amanda M Ferguson ◽  
Michael Inzlicht
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Simple Addition ◽  
Demand Selection

Humans and other animals find mental (and physical) effort aversive and have the fundamental drive to avoid it. However, exerting no effort, doing nothing, is also aversive: it leads to boredom. Here, we ask whether people choose to exert effort when the alternative is to do nothing at all. Across nine studies, participants completed variants of the demand selection task, in which they repeatedly selected between a cognitively effortful task (e.g., simple addition, Stroop task) and a task that required no effort (e.g., doing nothing, watching the computer complete the Stroop). We then tabulated people’s choices. Across all studies and a mini meta-analysis, we found no evidence of effort avoidance and sometimes even a preference for effort when the alternative was doing nothing. Our findings reveal the limits of effort avoidance, suggesting that people do not seek to completely minimize effort expenditure.

Behavioural and EEG atypicalities during rest, visual perception, and cognitive control in autistic adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amandine Lassalle ◽  
Michael X Cohen ◽  
Laura Dekkers ◽  
Elizabeth Milne ◽  
Rasa Gulbinaite ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Neural Dynamics ◽  
Simple Explanation ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Neural Structure ◽  
Eeg Power ◽  
Autistic Adults

Background: People with an Autism Spectrum Condition diagnosis (ASD) are hypothesized to show atypical neural dynamics, reflecting differences in neural structure and function. However, previous results regarding neural dynamics in autistic individuals have not converged on a single pattern of differences. It is possible that the differences are cognitive-set-specific, and we therefore measured EEG in autistic individuals and matched controls during three different cognitive states: resting, visual perception, and cognitive control.Methods: Young adults with and without an ASD (N=17 in each group) matched on age (range 20 to 30 years), sex, and estimated Intelligence Quotient (IQ) were recruited. We measured their behavior and their EEG during rest, a task requiring low-level visual perception of gratings of varying spatial frequency, and the “Simon task” to elicit activity in the executive control network. We computed EEG power and Inter-Site Phase Clustering (ISPC; a measure of connectivity) in various frequency bands.Results: During rest, there were no ASD vs. controls differences in EEG power, suggesting typical oscillation power at baseline. During visual processing, without pre-baseline normalization, we found decreased broadband EEG power in ASD vs. controls, but this was not the case during the cognitive control task. Furthermore, the behavioral results of the cognitive control task suggest that autistic adults were better able to ignore irrelevant stimuli.Conclusions: Together, our results defy a simple explanation of overall differences between ASD and controls, and instead suggest a more nuanced pattern of altered neural dynamics that depend on which neural networks are engaged.

Inspection times, the change task, and the rapid-response selection task

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell J. Roberts ◽  
Elizabeth J. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Time Pressure ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Time Effect ◽  
Rapid Response ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
Inspection Time ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Data Support ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Change Task

Three experiments are reported, which are based upon the Wason four-card selection task inspection time paradigm, in which subjects solve computer-presented trials while using a mouse to indicate the card currently under consideration. Evans (1996) had shown that selected cards were inspected for longer than non-selected cards, and this was taken as support for the existence of pre-conscious heuristic processes that direct attention towards relevant aspects of a problem. However, Roberts (1998b) suggested that this inspection time effect is artefactual, due to task format induced biases. Experiment 1 utilized a “change” task: Cards were presented either as selected or not selected, and subjects changed these where necessary. This demonstrated an association between card selection and inspection time independently of one between the act of response and inspection time. Experiment 2 utilized a standard selection task, but subjects either responded within 2 s of each card presentation, or made selections with no time pressure. The curtailment of thinking time increased matching behaviour—more cards matching the terms in the rules were selected—and was replicated in Experiment 3 using a within-subjects design. Overall, the data support Evans’ heuristic-analytic framework albeit with some caveats.

scholarly journals Aerobic fitness and response variability in preadolescent children performing a cognitive control task.

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chien-Ting Wu ◽  
Matthew B. Pontifex ◽  
Lauren B. Raine ◽  
Laura Chaddock ◽  
Michelle W. Voss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Aerobic Fitness ◽  
Response Variability ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Preadolescent Children

scholarly journals Interpersonal touch enhances cognitive control: A neurophysiological investigation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Anja Riesel ◽  
Julia Klawohn ◽  
Michael Inzlicht
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Performance Monitoring ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Romantic Couples ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
Interpersonal Touch ◽  
Neural Monitoring

Touch is central to mammalian communication, socialisation, and wellbeing. Despite this prominence, interpersonal touch is relatively understudied. In this preregistered investigation, we assessed the influence of interpersonal touch on the subjective, neural, and behavioural correlates of cognitive control. Forty-five romantic couples were recruited (N=90; dating>6 months), and one partner performed an inhibitory control task while electroencephalography was recorded to assess neural performance monitoring. Interpersonal touch was provided by the second partner, and was manipulated between experimental blocks. A within-subject repeated-measures design was used to maximise statistical power, with our sample size providing 80% power for even small effect sizes (ds > .25). Results indicated that participants were not only happier when receiving touch, but also showed increased neural processing of mistakes. Further exploratory cognitive modelling using indirect effects tests and drift diffusion models of decision making revealed that touch was indirectly associated with both improved inhibitory control and increased rates of evidence accumulation (drift rate) through its influence on neural monitoring. Thus, beyond regulating emotion and stress, interpersonal touch appears to enhance the neurocognitive processes underling flexible goal-directed behaviour.

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