Forced choices reveal a trade-off between cognitive effort and physical pain

Cognitive effort is described as aversive, and people will generally avoid it when possible. This aversion to effort is believed to arise from a cost-benefit analysis of the actions available. The comparison of cognitive effort against other primary aversive experiences, however, remains relatively...

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Bibliographic Details
Published ineLife Vol. 9
Main Authors Vogel, Todd A, Savelson, Zachary M, Otto, A Ross, Roy, Mathieu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 17.11.2020
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
Subjects
behavioural economics
Choice Behavior
Cognition
Cognition - physiology
cognitive effort
computational modelling
Computer Simulation
Decision Making - physiology
decision-making
Female
Health aspects
Hot Temperature
Humans
Male
Models, Theoretical
Neuroscience
Pain
Pilot Projects
Psychological aspects
Young Adult
United Kingdom
cognitive effort
behavioural economics
pain
decision-making
neuroscience
computational modelling
human
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Summary:Cognitive effort is described as aversive, and people will generally avoid it when possible. This aversion to effort is believed to arise from a cost-benefit analysis of the actions available. The comparison of cognitive effort against other primary aversive experiences, however, remains relatively unexplored. Here, we offered participants choices between performing a cognitively demanding task or experiencing thermal pain. We found that cognitive effort can be traded off for physical pain and that people generally avoid exerting high levels of cognitive effort. We also used computational modelling to examine the aversive subjective value of effort and its effects on response behaviours. Applying this model to decision times revealed asymmetric effects of effort and pain, suggesting that cognitive effort may not share the same basic influences on avoidance behaviour as more primary aversive stimuli such as physical pain.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.59410