IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0068210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Is the Subjective Cost of Cognitive Effort? Load, Trait, and Aging Effects Revealed by Economic Preference

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Westbrook
  • Daria Kester
  • Todd S Braver

Abstract

It has long been assumed that people treat cognitive effort as costly, but also that such effort costs may vary greatly across individuals. Individual differences in subjective effort could present a major and pervasive confound in behavioral and neuroscience assessments, by conflating cognitive ability with cognitive motivation. Self-report cognitive effort scales have been developed, but objective measures are lacking. In this study, we use the behavioral economic approach of revealed preferences to quantify subjective effort. Specifically, we adapted a well-established discounting paradigm to measure the extent to which cognitive effort causes participants to discount monetary rewards. The resulting metrics are sensitive to both within-individual factors, including objective load and reward amount, and between-individual factors, including age and trait cognitive engagement. We further validate cognitive effort discounting by benchmarking it against well-established measures of delay discounting. The results highlight the promise and utility of behavioral economic tools for assessing trait and state influences on cognitive motivation.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Westbrook & Daria Kester & Todd S Braver, 2013. "What Is the Subjective Cost of Cognitive Effort? Load, Trait, and Aging Effects Revealed by Economic Preference," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-8, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0068210
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068210
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068210&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0068210?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    2. Liane Schmidt & Maël Lebreton & Marie-Laure Cléry-Melin & Jean Daunizeau & Mathias Pessiglione, 2012. "Neural Mechanisms Underlying Motivation of Mental Versus Physical Effort," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julia Grass & Florian Krieger & Philipp Paulus & Samuel Greiff & Anja Strobel & Alexander Strobel, 2019. "Thinking in action: Need for Cognition predicts Self-Control together with Action Orientation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-20, August.
    2. Wouter Kool & Fiery A Cushman & Samuel J Gershman, 2016. "When Does Model-Based Control Pay Off?," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-34, August.
    3. Elizabeth A. Kensinger & Angela H. Gutchess, 2017. "Cognitive Aging in a Social and Affective Context: Advances Over the Past 50 Years," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(1), pages 61-70.
    4. Arian Aflaki & Pnina Feldman & Robert Swinney, 2019. "Becoming Strategic: Endogenous Consumer Time Preferences and Multiperiod Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 1116-1131, July.
    5. Oberholzer, Yvonne & Olschewski, Sebastian & Scheibehenne, Benjamin, 2024. "Complexity aversion in risky choices and valuations: Moderators and possible causes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    6. Vanda Viola & Annalisa Tosoni & Ambra Brizi & Ilaria Salvato & Arie W Kruglanski & Gaspare Galati & Lucia Mannetti, 2015. "Need for Cognitive Closure Modulates How Perceptual Decisions Are Affected by Task Difficulty and Outcome Relevance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-13, December.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:15:y:2020:i:4:p:586-599 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Zohar Rusou & Moty Amar & Shahar Ayal, 2020. "The psychology of task management: The smaller tasks trap," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(4), pages 586-599, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Norman Henderson & Ian Bateman, 1995. "Empirical and public choice evidence for hyperbolic social discount rates and the implications for intergenerational discounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(4), pages 413-423, June.
    2. Sorger, Gerhard, 2004. "Consistent planning under quasi-geometric discounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 118-129, September.
    3. Min Gong & David Krantz & Elke Weber, 2014. "Why Chinese discount future financial and environmental gains but not losses more than Americans," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 103-124, October.
    4. Lurås, Hilde, 2009. "A healthy lifestyle: The product of opportunities and preferences," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2001:11, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:709-728 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:236-249 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Stephanie Moulton & Cäzilia Loibl & Anya Samak & J. Michael Collins, 2013. "Borrowing Capacity and Financial Decisions of Low-to-Moderate Income First-Time Homebuyers," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 375-403, November.
    9. Yu-Jui Huang & Adrien Nguyen-Huu, 2018. "Time-consistent stopping under decreasing impatience," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 69-95, January.
    10. Marieka M. Klawitter & C. Leigh Anderson & Mary Kay Gugerty, 2013. "Savings And Personal Discount Rates In A Matched Savings Program For Low-Income Families," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 468-485, July.
    11. al-Nowaihi, Ali & Dhami, Sanjit, 2006. "A note on the Loewenstein-Prelec theory of intertemporal choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 99-108, July.
    12. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Gender roles and technological progress," 2006 Meeting Papers 411, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Uri Ben-Zion & Jan Pieter Krahnen & TAL SHAVIT, 2007. "Subjective Evaluation Of Delayed Risky Outcomes: An Experimental Approach," Working Papers 0709, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    14. Ahmadi, Iman & Skiera, Bernd & Lambrecht, Anja & Heubrandner, Florian, 2017. "Time preferences and the pricing of complementary durables and consumables," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 813-828.
    15. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F., 2012. "A test of independence of discounting from quality of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 22-34.
    16. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    17. Steinhorst, M.P. & Bahrs, E., 2013. "Renditansprüche im Kontext gleichmäßiger Rückflüsse – Ergebnisse eines Experiments mit Stakeholdern des Agribusiness," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 48, March.
    18. Butler, Monika & Teppa, Federica, 2005. "Should You Take a Lump-Sum or Annuitize? Results from Swiss Pension Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 5316, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Evgeny Kagan & Alexander Rybalov, 2022. "Subjective Trusts and Prospects: Some Practical Remarks on Decision Making with Imperfect Information," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, March.
    20. Schilirò, Daniele & Graziano, Mario, 2011. "Scelte e razionalità nei modelli economici: un'analisi multidisciplinare [Choices and rationality in economic models: a multidisciplinary analysis]," MPRA Paper 31910, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Jindrich Matousek & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova, 2022. "Individual discount rates: a meta-analysis of experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 318-358, February.
    22. Buckenmaier, Johannes & Dimant, Eugen & Posten, Ann-Christin & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2017. "On punishment institutions and effective deterrence of illicit behavior," Kiel Working Papers 2090, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0068210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.