Trial reportScientific reports2017
Subjective experience of difficulty depends on multiple cues.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cognitive Control and Metacognition: The Effect of Interference, Working-Memory Load, and Shifting on Confidence in Response Correctness and Partial Error.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Judgments of Difficulty (JODs) While Observing an Automated System Support the Media Equation and Unique Agent Hypotheses.Human factors · 2025Article
- Gastric ultrasound performance time and difficulty: a prospective observational study.Anaesthesia · 2025Observational
- Implicit manifestation of prospective metacognition in betting choices enhances its efficiency compared to explicit expression.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Judging the difficulty of perceptual decisions.eLife · 2023Article
- Math anxiety relates positively to metacognitive insight into mathematical decision making.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Confidence in action: Differences between perceived accuracy of decision and motor response.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2021Article
- Understanding neural signals of post-decisional performance monitoring: An integrative review.eLife · 2021Review
- Deciding What to Do: Developments in Children's Spontaneous Monitoring of Cognitive Demands.Child development perspectives · 2020Article
- Robust valence-induced biases on motor response and confidence in human reinforcement learning.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Knowing Ourselves Together: The Cultural Origins of Metacognition.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2020Review
- Temporal experience modifies future thoughts: Manipulation of Libet's W influences difficulty assessment during a decision-making task.PloS one · 2020Article
- Article
- Anticipating cognitive effort: roles of perceived error-likelihood and time demands.Psychological research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human cognition is characterized by subjective experiences that go along with our actions, but the nature and stability of these experiences remain largely unclear. In the current report, the subjective experience of difficulty is studied and it is proposed that this experience is constructed by integrating information from multiple cues. Such an account can explain the tight relationship between primary task performance and subjective difficulty, while allowing for dissociations between both to occur. Confirming this hypothesis, response conflict, reaction time and response repetition were identified as variables that contribute to the experience of difficulty. Trials that were congruent, fast or required the same response as the previous trial were more frequently rated as easy than trials that were incongruent, slow or required a different response as the previous trial. Furthermore, in line with theoretical accounts that relate metacognition to learning, a three day training procedure showed that the influence of these variables on subjective difficulty judgments can be changed. Results of the current study are discussed in relation to work on meta-memory and to recent theoretical advancements in the understanding of subjective confidence.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.