Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41144677›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025

Learning expectations shape cognitive control allocation.

Javier Alejandro Masís Obando, Sebastian Musslick, Jonathan D Cohen

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Learning expectations shape cognitive control allocation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Javier Alejandro Masís ObandoPrinceton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540.ORCID 0000-0002-9643-8677
Sebastian MusslickInstitute for Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück 49090, Germany.
Jonathan D CohenPrinceton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540.ORCID 0000-0003-2316-0763

Funding

NRSA Training Grant in Quantitative NeuroscienceT32MH065214 · NIMH · PRINCETON UNIVERSITY · PI Nathaniel Douglass Daw, KENNETH A NORMAN · 2002 to 2026
$7.9M
Brown University (BU) Carney BRAINSTORMDOD | USN | Office of Naval Research (ONR) Vannevar Bush Faculty FellowshipNIH HHS T32MH065214Princeton University (PU) Presidential Postdoctoral Research FellowshipRhodes Trust n/aSchmidt Science Fellows n/aSwartz Foundation Swartz Fellowship in Theoretical Neuroscience
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Current models frame the allocation of cognitive control as a process of expected utility maximization. The benefits of a candidate control signal are weighed against its costs (e.g., opportunity costs). Recent theorizing has found that, despite promoting the counterintuitive behavior of longer deliberation, which is less rewarding in the short term, it is nevertheless normative to account for the value of learning when determining control allocation. Here, we sought to test this proposal by examining whether people were willing to allocate greater control and thereby expend greater effort (e.g., deliberate for longer) when they perceived a task to be learnable compared to when they did not. We found that participants' proficiency and learning rate in the first block of a simple perceptual dot-motion task were able to predict their willingness to deliberate in a second block. These findings support the hypothesis that agents consider learnability when allocating cognitive control, and comply with a formal model of control allocation that considers the future discounted value of learning on reward.

Indexed as

CognitionLearningAdultFemaleHumansMaleRewardYoung Adultcognitive controldecision makingdrift diffusion modelexpected value of controllearning

Identifiers

PMID41144677
PMCPMC12595486

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.