The Sense of Effort: a Cost-Benefit Theory of the Phenomenology of Mental Effort
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The Sense of Effort: a Cost-Benefit Theory of the Phenomenology of Mental Effort Marcell Székely 1 & John Michael 1,2 Accepted: 30 September 2020 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In the current paper, we articulate a theory to explain the phenomenology of mental effort. The theory provides a working definition of mental effort, explains in what sense mental effort is a limited resource, and specifies the factors that determine whether or not mental effort is experienced as aversive. The core of our theory is the conjecture that the sense of effort is the output of a cost-benefit analysis. This cost-benefit analysis employs heuristics to weigh the current and anticipated costs of mental effort for a particular activity against the anticipated benefits. This provides a basis for spelling out testable predictions to structure future research on the phenomenology of mental effort. Keywords Mental effort . Motivation . Cognitive control . Apathy
1 Introduction The experience of mental effort is a familiar feature of daily life. Driving a car, solving basic math problems, or compiling a grocery list – everyday activities such as these demand sustained attention and self-control to resist distractions and tempting alternatives. As a result, we often experience them as effortful, and sometimes postpone them, neglect to complete them altogether, or perform them with insufficient attention. This can lead to dangerous situations, to financial loss, or to wasted time – as when we wander back and forth among various sections of the supermarket because we have been too lazy to prepare a shopping list to help us navigate efficiently among the aisles.
* John Michael [email protected] Marcell Székely [email protected]
1
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
2
University of Stirling, Scotland, UK
M. Székely, J. Michael
Mental effort is not only a salient feature of everyday life: experimental tasks employed throughout the cognitive sciences demand varying degrees of mental effort from participants, i.e. along a continuum from effortless to effortful. On a Stroop task, for example, it feels more effortful to respond correctly to a non-matching stimulus (when the word ‘blue’ is printed in red font) than to a matching one (when the word ‘blue’ is printed in blue font), and it also feels particularly effortful to shift back and forth between matching and non-matching trials (MacLeod 1991; Golden and Freshwater 1978). Similarly, copying a statement using our non-dominant hand demands greater cognitive effort than writing with our dominant hand (Petrova 2006). This means that mental effort is a key parameter that must be carefully calibrated even in research that is not directly investigating mental effort. Given the centrality of mental effort in everyday life and as a key parameter in experimental research in the cognitive sciences, it is no surprise that there has been a wealth of theoretical and empirical research investigating mental effort in recent decades. Th
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