Which task will we choose first? Precrastination and cognitive load in task ordering

Abstract

Precrastination, as opposed to procrastination, is the tendency to embark on tasks as soon as possible,evenat the expense of extra physical effort. We examined the generality of this recently discovered phenomenon by extending the methods used to study it, mainly to test the hypothesis that precrastination is motivated by cognitive load reduction. Our participants picked up two objects and brought them back together. Participants in Experiment 1 demonstrated precrastination by picking up the near object first, carrying it back to the farther object, and then returning with both. Also, participants given an additional cognitive task (memory load) had a higher probability of precrastinating than those not given the added cognitive task. The objects in Experiment 1 were buckets with balls that had a very low chance of spillage; carrying them required low demands on attention. The near-object-first preference was eliminated in Experiment 2, where the near and far objects were cups with water that had a high chance of spillage; carrying them required higher demands on attention. Had precrastination occurred in this case, it would have greatly increased cognitive effort. The results establish the generality of precrastination and suggest that it is sensitive to cognitive load. Our results complement others showing that people tend to structure their behavior tominimize cognitive effort.The mainnew discovery is that people expend more physical effort to do so. We discuss the applied implications of our findings, as well as the possibility that precrastination may be a default, automatic behavior.

Free-choice and forced-choice actions: Shared representations and conservation of cognitive effort

“…Thus, we suggest that our participants were biased to make free choices that minimized cognitive effort. This is consistent with research on decision making that shows that participants will tend to make choices, even choices that appear suboptimal, that conserve cognitive effort (Botvinick & Rosen, 2009;Dignath, Kiesel, & Eder, 2015;Fournier et al, 2019;Kool et al, 2010).…”

“…Research indicates that people tend to avoid choices that require more cognitive effort (Ballard, Hayhoe, & Pelz, 1995;Droll & Hayhoe, 2007;Dunn, Lutes, & Risko, 2016). Even for decisions that require few demands on cognition, the less cognitively effortful alternative is typically chosen (e.g., Fournier et al, 2019;Kool, McGuire, Rosen, & Botvinick, 2010) and may be more rewarding (Botvinick, Huffstetler, & McGuire, 2009;Botvinick & Rosen, 2009). Thus, if any response biases exist in selecting free-choice responses, we would expect to find a bias that circumvents partial feature overlap with the future action goal.…”

Sooner Rather Than Later: Precrastination Rather Than Procrastination

“…Premature switching was also observed when the continuous mode was the first mode and the discrete mode was the second. In other work, Levy-Tzedek (2017) showed, much as Fournier et al (2019) did, that adding a cognitive task (counting backward) affected the likelihood of precrastination. Levy-Tzedek (2017) also found that older adults precrastinated less than younger adults, for reasons still to be explored.…”

“…In another experiment, Fournier et al (2019) gave participants a memorization task in conjunction with less attention-demanding object carrying. These participants precrastinated at higher rates than participants who were not given the added memorization.…”

Implicit task switching in Parkinson’s disease is preserved when on medication

“…Results from young individuals performing the implicit switching task [9] as well as from studies of pre-crastination (e.g., [70,71]) and of predictive control of saccadic eye movements [72] suggest that there is a cognitive component to the predictive control of movement. The cognitive decline reported to be associated with PD [4] would suggest we should find less predictive control in the PD population, but that is not the case, potentially due to the dopaminergic medication they take, as suggested above.…”