ArticlePloS one2021
The effects of intrinsic motivation on mental fatigue.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of fatigue in surgeons on performance and patient outcome: systematic review.The British journal of surgery · 2024Pooled it
- Application of Eye Tracking Technology in Aviation, Maritime, and Construction Industries: A Systematic Review.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Pooled it
- Towards a domain-general mechanistic model of fatigue: application to Functional Neurological Disorder.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Review
- Examining the relationship between gamification profiles (HEXAD) and mental fatigue in football players: a theoretical and contextual analysis.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Student intrinsic motivational states underlie cognitive performance regardless of academic stage.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- A cognitive architecture for Long COVID: the interplay of brain fog, fatigue, attention and memory.Brain communications · 2026Article
- The Impact of Coursework Demand and Learning Engagement on Mental Fatigue in Online College Students.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Mood shapes the impact of reward on perceived fatigue from listening.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024Article
- Boosts for walking: how humorous messages increase brisk walking among cognitively fatigued individuals.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Prolonged theoretical classes impact students' perceptions: an observational study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Hybrid framework of fatigue: connecting motivational control and computational moderators to gamma oscillations.Frontiers in neuroergonomics · 2024Article
- Article
- Exploring Physical and Biological Manifestations of Burnout and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Healthcare Workers: A Scoping Review Protocol.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Understanding mental fatigue and its detection: a comparative analysis of assessments and tools.PeerJ · 2023Review
- Article
- Fatigue as a key human factor in complex sociotechnical systems: Vessel Traffic Services.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Slowed reaction times in cognitive fatigue are not attributable to declines in motor preparation.Experimental brain research · 2022Article
- Emotion Regulation, Effort and Fatigue: Complex Issues Worth Investigating.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Proof-of-Concept and Test-Retest Reliability Study of Psychological and Physiological Variables of the Mental Fatigue Paradigm.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Detours increase local knowledge-Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure.PloS one · 2021Article
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 at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There have been many studies attempting to disentangle the relation between motivation and mental fatigue. Mental fatigue occurs after performing a demanding task for a prolonged time, and many studies have suggested that motivation can counteract the negative effects of mental fatigue on task performance. To complicate matters, most mental fatigue studies looked exclusively at the effects of extrinsic motivation but not intrinsic motivation. Individuals are said to be extrinsically motivated when they perform a task to attain rewards and avoid punishments, while they are said to be intrinsically motivated when they do for the pleasure of doing the activity. To assess whether intrinsic motivation has similar effects as extrinsic motivation, we conducted an experiment using subjective, performance, and physiological measures (heart rate variability and pupillometry). In this experiment, 28 participants solved Sudoku puzzles on a computer for three hours, with a cat video playing in the corner of the screen. The experiment consisted of 14 blocks with two alternating conditions: low intrinsic motivation and high intrinsic motivation. The main results showed that irrespective of condition, participants reported becoming fatigued over time. They performed better, invested more mental effort physiologically, and were less distracted in high-level than in low-level motivation blocks. The results suggest that similarly to extrinsic motivation, time-on-task effects are modulated by the level of intrinsic motivation: With high intrinsic motivation, people can maintain their performance over time as they seem willing to invest more effort as time progresses than in low intrinsic motivation.
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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.