ArticlePloS one2023
Is it cognitive effort you measure? Comparing three task paradigms to the Need for Cognition scale.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trial
- Reducing cognitive demand fails to mitigate choice overload: Multimodal neural and gaze evidence for effort conservation.iScience · 2026Article
- Shared and distinct features of common effort-based decision-making paradigms and their relation to brain structure and neuropsychiatric conditions: An integrated narrative review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- The pleasure of effort: Cognitive challenges trigger hedonic physiological responses.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Wagers for work: Decomposing the costs of cognitive effort.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Effort Foraging Task reveals positive correlation between individual differences in the cost of cognitive and physical effort in humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Measuring individual differences in cognitive effort can be elusive as effort is a function of motivation and ability. We report six studies (N = 663) investigating the relationship of Need for Cognition and working memory capacity with three cognitive effort measures: demand avoidance in the Demand Selection Task, effort discounting measured as the indifference point in the Cognitive Effort Discounting paradigm, and rational reasoning score with items from the heuristic and bias literature. We measured perceived mental effort with the NASA task load index. The three tasks were not correlated with each other (all r's < .1, all p's > .1). Need for Cognition was positively associated with effort discounting (r = .168, p < .001) and rational reasoning (r = .176, p < .001), but not demand avoidance (r = .085, p = .186). Working memory capacity was related to effort discounting (r = .185, p = .004). Higher perceived effort was related to poorer rational reasoning. Our data indicate that two of the tasks are related to Need for Cognition but are also influenced by a participant's working memory capacity. We discuss whether any of the tasks measure cognitive effort.
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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.