Mental and physical effort affect vigilance differently

Smit, Annika; Eling, Paul; Hopman, Maria T. E.; Coenen, A.M.L.

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2005.02.001

Cited by 75 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Indeed, researchers have known for some time that mental and physical effort differ in their systemic catecholamine profiles (Fibiger et al, 1984) and in their lasting effects on subsequent task performance (Smit et al, 2005). Critically, at least one study has dissociated regions in humans that process different types of effort costs, with physical effort exertion encoded by motor cortex, and cognitive effort exertion encoded by dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal cortices (Schmidt et al, 2012), targets of future rCET studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopamine Antagonism Decreases Willingness to Expend Physical, But Not Cognitive, Effort: A Comparison of Two Rodent Cost/Benefit Decision-Making Tasks

Hosking

Floresco

Winstanley

2014

Neuropsychopharmacol

136

103

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Successful decision making often requires weighing a given option's costs against its associated benefits, an ability that appears perturbed in virtually every severe mental illness. Animal models of such cost/benefit decision making overwhelmingly implicate mesolimbic dopamine in our willingness to exert effort for a larger reward. Until recently, however, animal models have invariably manipulated the degree of physical effort, whereas human studies of effort have primarily relied on cognitive costs. Dopamine's relationship to cognitive effort has not been directly examined, nor has the relationship between individuals' willingness to expend mental versus physical effort. It is therefore unclear whether willingness to work hard in one domain corresponds to willingness in the other. Here we utilize a rat cognitive effort task (rCET), wherein animals can choose to allocate greater visuospatial attention for a greater reward, and a previously established physical effort-discounting task (EDT) to examine dopaminergic and noradrenergic contributions to effort. The dopamine antagonists eticlopride and SCH23390 each decreased willingness to exert physical effort on the EDT; these drugs had no effect on willingness to exert mental effort for the rCET. Preference for the high effort option correlated across the two tasks, although this effect was transient. These results suggest that dopamine is only minimally involved in cost/benefit decision making with cognitive effort costs. The constructs of mental and physical effort may therefore comprise overlapping, but distinct, circuitry, and therapeutic interventions that prove efficacious in one effort domain may not be beneficial in another.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopamine Antagonism Decreases Willingness to Expend Physical, But Not Cognitive, Effort: A Comparison of Two Rodent Cost/Benefit Decision-Making Tasks

Hosking

Floresco

Winstanley

2014

Neuropsychopharmacol

136

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More especially, limited cognitive working memory resources in the morning, as a consequence of low alertness, would have been insufficient to enable efficient strategies in the high difficulty/high time pressure conditions, while no effect was expected in the easy and/or low time pressure conditions as in these conditions the task could be solved without requiring specific strategies (germane load virtually inexistent). In other controlled laboratory studies, decreased alertness or arousal has also been shown to be associated with lower working memory performance (Fabbri et al 2007;Smit et al 2005), especially in the higher cognitive load condition (Jackson et al 2014). Further, when the same load factors were explored in air traffic controllers performing a mental arithmetic task, time pressure improved performance in the low difficulty task condition, but only when controllers' alertness was high (Mélan and Cascino 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Several authors stressed that multiple indicators of each cognitive load type would provide a broader evaluation of each load type than single items (Debue and van de Leemput 2014;Leppink et al 2014). In this respect, multidimensional subjective rating scales have been developed, and self-ratings have been performed together with objective ratings, including performance measures, eye-tracking components and differential heart rate (Amadieu et al 2009;Debue and van de Leemput 2014;Galy et al 2012;Leppink et al 2014;Smit et al 2005).…”

Section: Interaction Between Intrinsic and Extraneous Cognitive Load mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Cognitive Appraisal and Mental Workload Factors on Performance in an Arithmetic Task

Galy

Mélan

2015

Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback

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We showed in a previous study an additive interaction between intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads and of participants' alertness in an 1-back working memory task. The interaction between intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads was only observed when participants' alertness was low (i.e. in the morning). As alertness is known to reflect an individual's general functional state, we suggested that the working memory capacity available for germane cognitive load depends on a participant's functional state, in addition to intrinsic and extraneous loads induced by the task and task conditions. The relationships between the different load types and their assessment by specific load measures gave rise to a modified cognitive load model. The aim of the present study was to complete the model by determining to what extent and at what processing level an individual's characteristics intervene in order to implement efficient strategies in a working memory task. Therefore, the study explored participants' cognitive appraisal of the situation in addition to the load factors considered previously-task difficulty, time pressure and alertness. Each participant performed a mental arithmetic task in four different cognitive load conditions (crossover of two task difficulty conditions and of two time pressure conditions), both while their alertness was low (9 a.m.) and high (4 p.m.). Results confirmed an additive effect of task difficulty and time pressure, previously reported in the 1-back memory task, thereby lending further support to the modified cognitive load model. Further, in the high intrinsic and extraneous load condition, performance was reduced on the morning session (i.e. when alertness was low) on one hand, and in those participants' having a threat appraisal of the situation on the other hand. When these factors were included into the analysis, a performance drop occurred in the morning irrespective of cognitive appraisal, and with threat appraisal in the afternoon (i.e. high alertness). Taken together, these findings indicate that mental overload can be the result of a combination of subject-related characteristics, including alertness and cognitive appraisal, in addition to well-documented task-related components (intrinsic and extraneous load). As the factors investigated in the study are known to be critically involved in a number of real job-activities, the findings suggest that solutions designed to reduce incidents and accidents at work should consider the situation from a global perspective, including individual characteristics, task parameters, and work organization, rather than dealing with each factor separately.

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“…This shows that response speed of the other participant is not the source of the effect, but rather the actual degree of exerted effort. When exerting effort yourself, this is associated with increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, decreased heart-rate variability, and a perceived increase in arousal (Howells, Stein, & Russell, 2010;Peters et al, 1998;Smit, Eling, Hopman, & Coenen, 2005). However, to our knowledge, no study so far has examined how participants can perceive (physiologic markers related to) the effort exerted by another person.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is mental effort exertion contagious?

2015

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The presence of another person can influence task performance. What is, however, still unclear is whether performance also depends on what this other person is doing. In two experiments, two participants (A and B) jointly performed a Simon task, and we selectively manipulated the difficulty of the task for participant A only. This was achieved by presenting A with 90% congruent trials (creating an easy task requiring low effort investment) or 10% congruent trials (creating a difficult task requiring high effort investment). Although this manipulation is irrelevant for the task of participant B, we nevertheless observed that B exerted more mental effort when participant A performed the difficult version of the task, compared to the easy version. Crucially, in Experiment 2 this was found to be the case even when participants could not see each other's stimuli. These results provide a first compelling demonstration that the exertion of effort is contagious.

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Mental and physical effort affect vigilance differently

Cited by 75 publications

References 31 publications

Dopamine Antagonism Decreases Willingness to Expend Physical, But Not Cognitive, Effort: A Comparison of Two Rodent Cost/Benefit Decision-Making Tasks

Dopamine Antagonism Decreases Willingness to Expend Physical, But Not Cognitive, Effort: A Comparison of Two Rodent Cost/Benefit Decision-Making Tasks

Effects of Cognitive Appraisal and Mental Workload Factors on Performance in an Arithmetic Task

Is mental effort exertion contagious?

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