Neuroeconomical evaluation of cognitive cost during mental fatigue

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Neuroeconomical evaluation of cognitive cost during mental fatigue Charles-Etienne Benoit1*, Oleg Solopchuk1, Etienne Olivier1 and Alexandre Zénon1 1 Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium When engaging extensively in a demanding cognitive task, individuals typically report a subjective feeling of fatigue, sometimes described as an increase in the aversiveness of cognitive effort. Here we used a neuroeconomical procedure, inspired from Westbrook et al. 2013, which allowed us to evaluate the cost associated to the performance of the cognitively demanding task. We then compared cognitive cost after a fatiguing and a control condition. Subjects (N=30) were faced with a series of choices associated to different monetary rewards. They had to take position to perform in a high-reward and more difficult block or an easier version of the same task with lower reward. Developed over a combination of auditory N-back, this working memory task consisted in evaluating if a presented alphabetical letter was identical to the one presented N iteration before. Task difficulty was titrated subject by subject (N = 2 to 5). Participants evaluated their willingness to engage in more demanding blocks (e.g., 80% 5-back for 2 euro vs 20% 5-back for 1.2 euro). About one third of the selected choices, picked pseudo-randomly, had to be actually performed. Their performance in the task impacted on the amount of money gained per block, in order to ensure their active involvement. Overall, we found that participants tended to accept to perform the demanding task less often after the fatiguing condition, confirming our hypothesis. Moreover, the results showed a high test-retest reliability of the method and demonstrated the viability of this task avoidance approach to investigate quantitatively the cost of cognitive effort. We aim to use this novel approach in fatigue-inducing protocols, pathological populations or doubled-blind pharmacological studies that alter risk-taking and reward-seeking behavior. Keywords: cognitive effort, Fatigue, neuroeconomics, n-back task, Risk taking Conference: 12th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience, Gent, Belgium, 22 May - 22 May, 2017. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Cognition and Behavior Citation: Benoit C, Solopchuk O, Olivier E and Zénon A (2019). Neuroeconomical evaluation of cognitive cost during mental fatigue. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 12th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2017.94.00097 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Apr 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Charles-Etienne Benoit, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium, charles.etienne.benoit@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Charles-Etienne Benoit Oleg Solopchuk Etienne Olivier Alexandre Zénon Google Charles-Etienne Benoit Oleg Solopchuk Etienne Olivier Alexandre Zénon Google Scholar Charles-Etienne Benoit Oleg Solopchuk Etienne Olivier Alexandre Zénon PubMed Charles-Etienne Benoit Oleg Solopchuk Etienne Olivier Alexandre Zénon Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.