Task Effort Research Articles

Examining the Effect of ChatGPT Usage on Students’ Academic Learning and Achievement: A Survey-based Study in Ajman, UAE

This research examines the use of ChatGPT among university-level students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and its effects on their learning experiences. The precise focus remains on the effects of ChatGPT usage on Student Engagement, Critical Thinking Abilities, and Academic Achievement. Using the cross-sectional design, the Constructivism Learning Theory supports this research. Data gathered using 353 structured questionnaires is analyzed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Results showed that ChatGPT usage positively affects student engagement in the learning process. The effect of ChatGPT usage on Critical Thinking Abilities also remained significant. Finally, the findings indicated the positive effect of ChatGPT usage on the Academic Achievement of Emirati students. These results imply a robust, positive, and constructive role of AI technology, particularly ChatGPT, in the education and learning journey of university students in the UAE. It is concluded that ChatGPT is a useful tool that helps students by providing resources and suggestions throughout their learning process. It increases engagement, effort, and ambition in academic tasks, enhancing academic achievement. ChatGPT supports educational progress and motivates students to obtain knowledge by improving their interest in learning. Finally, the study's implications and limitations are discussed. Also, recommendations for future studies are proposed.

The International Climate Psychology Collaboration: Climate change-related data collected from 63 countries

Climate change is currently one of humanity’s greatest threats. To help scholars understand the psychology of climate change, we conducted an online quasi-experimental survey on 59,508 participants from 63 countries (collected between July 2022 and July 2023). In a between-subjects design, we tested 11 interventions designed to promote climate change mitigation across four outcomes: climate change belief, support for climate policies, willingness to share information on social media, and performance on an effortful pro-environmental behavioural task. Participants also reported their demographic information (e.g., age, gender) and several other independent variables (e.g., political orientation, perceptions about the scientific consensus). In the no-intervention control group, we also measured important additional variables, such as environmentalist identity and trust in climate science. We report the collaboration procedure, study design, raw and cleaned data, all survey materials, relevant analysis scripts, and data visualisations. This dataset can be used to further the understanding of psychological, demographic, and national-level factors related to individual-level climate action and how these differ across countries.

Validation of a novel effort-discounting assessment and evaluation of the effort-delay confound on effort discounting.

A vast literature highlights the prevalence of impulsive decision making in maladaptive outcomes. Most research has focused on one form-delay discounting. Less research has focused on effort discounting, possibly because of a lack of a standardized task for assessment. In published effort-discounting tasks, effort is conceptualized in many ways, making it difficult to compare findings across studies. Additionally, most effort-discounting tasks do not control for the time inherent in completing the effortful task, which makes it difficult to disentangle effort discounting from delay discounting. The current study evaluated the validity of a novel hypothetical effort-discounting task. The novel task was used to evaluate the influence of the effort-delay confound on rates of effort discounting in humans. Participants were randomly assigned to complete a confounded or a controlled version of the novel effort-discounting task. The effort-discounting data were well described by hyperbolic and exponential functions. When effort and delay were confounded, effort-discounting rates were significantly higher than when effort alone influenced discounting. The results suggest that data that are produced by effort-discounting tasks that do not control the effort-delay confound should be interpreted cautiously because they are also influenced by delay discounting. Task limitations and future directions are discussed.

Physical effort precrastination determines preference in an isometric task.

How the brain decides when to invest effort is a central question in neuroscience. When asked to walk a mile to a destination, would you choose a path with a hill at the beginning or the end? The traditional view of effort suggests we should be indifferent-all joules are equal so long as it does not interfere with accomplishing the goal. Yet, when total joules are equal across movement decisions, the brain's sensitivity to the temporal profile of effort investment remains poorly understood. Here, we sought to parse the interaction of time and physical effort by comparing subjective preferences in an isometric arm-pushing task that varied the duration and timing of high and low effort. Subjects were presented with a series of two-alternative forced choices, where they chose the force profile they would rather complete. Subjects preferred earlier physical effort (i.e., to precrastinate) but were idiosyncratic about preference for task timing. A model of subjective utility that includes physical effort costs, task costs, and independent temporal sensitivity factors described subject preferences best. Interestingly, deliberation time and response vigor covary with the same subjective utility model for preference, suggesting a utility that underlies both decision making and motor control. These results suggest physical effort costs are temporally sensitive, with earlier investment of effort preferred to later investment, and that the representation of effort is based on not only the total energy required but also when it is required to invest that energy.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We use a novel paradigm that differentiates physical effort costs, task costs, and time, where subjects choose between isometric arm-pushing tasks. Subjects prefer high physical effort earlier than later. They also decide faster and respond more vigorously the greater their preference. We find a generalizable subjective utility model that includes independent time-sensitivity of physical effort and task costs. Together, we demonstrate that subjective effort includes not only the total effort invested but also its timing.

The Moderating Role of Interest in the Relationship between Perceived Task Difficulty and Invested Mental Effort

Including motivational variables such as interest in the cognitive load framework is an ongoing process. Of particular interest is the question of how motivational variables influence the investment of mental effort. In this study, we investigated how topic interest affects the investment of mental effort in simple tasks. A total of 1543 students’ judgments regarding invested mental effort, perceived task difficulty, and topic interest for 32 tasks of a chemistry test were analyzed at the task level based on item response theory parameters. Additionally, objective task difficulty was calculated. The Rasch parameters were used for correlation and moderated regression analyses. The results indicated that when perceived task difficulty was low, students invested more mental effort in solving tasks of low topic interest compared to tasks of high topic interest. With increasing perceived task difficulty, the amount of invested mental effort rose for tasks of low as well as high topic interest. However, the difference between tasks of low and high topic interest in the amount of invested mental effort decreased as perceived task difficulty increased and even vanished when perceived task difficulty roughly corresponded to students’ performance capability. These results are in line with flow theory and the expectancy-value-cost model of motivation. When solving tasks that match their performance capability, students can experience a flow situation. However, when solving rather easy tasks of low interest, students can experience motivational costs in terms of additional effort, such as an increased need for motivational self-regulation. The results of this study provide a basis for systematically investigating and better understanding the relationship between interest, task difficulty, invested mental effort, flow experience, and emotional costs.

Exaggerated frontoparietal control over cognitive effort-based decision-making in young women with anorexia nervosa.

Effortful tasks are generally experienced as costly, but the value of work varies greatly across individuals and populations. While most mental health conditions are characterized by amotivation and effort avoidance, individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) persistently engage in effortful behaviors that most people find unrewarding (food restriction, excessive exercise). Current models of AN differentially attribute such extreme weight-control behavior to altered reward responding and exaggerated cognitive control. In a novel test of these theoretical accounts, we employed an established cognitive effort discounting paradigm in combination with fMRI in young acutely underweight female patients with AN (n = 48) and age-matched healthy controls (HC; n = 48). Contrary to the hypothesis that individuals with AN would experience cognitive effort (operationalized as N-back task performance) as less costly than HC participants, groups did not differ in the subjective value (SV) of discounted rewards or in SV-related activation of brain regions involved in reward valuation. Rather, all group differences in both behavior (superior N-back performance in AN and associated effort ratings) and fMRI activation (increased SV-related frontoparietal activation during decision-making in AN even for easier choices) were more indicative of increased control. These findings suggest that while effort discounting may be relatively intact in AN, effort investment is high both when performing demanding tasks and during effort-based decision-making; highlighting cognitive overcontrol as an important therapeutic target. Future research should establish whether exaggerated control during effort-based decision-making persists after weight-recovery and explore learning the value of effort in AN with tasks involving disorder-relevant effort demands and rewards.

Artificial Intelligence Implementation in Agile Project Management Addressing Challenges and Maximizing Impact

The Agile methodology, with an 80% adoption rate, often faces challenges leading to project failures. This study investigates using artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome these challenges through a systematic literature review of 44 papers. It examines AI's impact on key Agile phases: envision, speculate, explore, adapt, and close. Findings highlight AI's critical role in improving project outcomes by addressing implementation challenges. AI tools aid in risk assessment and project selection during planning, enhance effort estimation and task allocation in speculation, improve team communication and technical issue resolution in exploration, optimize systems in adaptation, and provide valuable insights in closure. The paper offers guidance on effective AI integration to enhance Agile Project Management success.

Characterization of Cochlear Implant Artifact and Removal Based on Multi-Channel Wiener Filter in Unilateral Child Patients.

Cochlear implants (CI) allow deaf patients to improve language perception and improving their emotional valence assessment. Electroencephalographic (EEG) measures were employed so far to improve CI programming reliability and to evaluate listening effort in auditory tasks, which are particularly useful in conditions when subjective evaluations are scarcely appliable or reliable. Unfortunately, the presence of CI on the scalp introduces an electrical artifact coupled to EEG signals that masks physiological features recorded by electrodes close to the site of implant. Currently, methods for CI artifact removal have been developed for very specific EEG montages or protocols, while others require many scalp electrodes. In this study, we propose a method based on the Multi-channel Wiener filter (MWF) to overcome those shortcomings. Nine children with unilateral CI and nine age-matched normal hearing children (control) participated in the study. EEG data were acquired on a relatively low number of electrodes (n = 16) during resting condition and during an auditory task. The obtained results obtained allowed to characterize CI artifact on the affected electrode and to significantly reduce, if not remove it through MWF filtering. Moreover, the results indicate, by comparing the two sample populations, that the EEG data loss is minimal in CI users after filtering, and that data maintain EEG physiological characteristics.

Human–Robot Co-Facilitation in Collaborative Learning: A Comparative Study of the Effects of Human and Robot Facilitation on Learning Experience and Learning Outcomes

Collaborative learning has been widely studied in higher education and beyond, suggesting that collaboration in small groups can be effective for promoting deeper learning, enhancing engagement and motivation, and improving a range of cognitive and social outcomes. The study presented in this paper compared different forms of human and robot facilitation in the game of planning poker, designed as a collaborative activity in the undergraduate course on agile project management. Planning poker is a consensus-based game for relative estimation in teams. Team members collaboratively estimate effort for a set of project tasks. In our study, student teams played the game of planning poker to estimate the effort required for project tasks by comparing task effort relative to one another. In this within- and between-subjects study, forty-nine students in eight teams participated in two out of four conditions. The four conditions differed in respect to the form of human and/or robot facilitation. Teams 1–4 participated in conditions C1 human online and C3 unsupervised robot, while teams 5–8 participated in conditions C2 human face to face and C4 supervised robot co-facilitation. While planning poker was facilitated by a human teacher in conditions C1 and C2, the NAO robot facilitated the game-play in conditions C3 and C4. In C4, the robot facilitation was supervised by a human teacher. The study compared these four forms of facilitation and explored the effects of the type of facilitation on the facilitator’s competence (FC), learning experience (LX), and learning outcomes (LO). The results based on the data from an online survey indicated a number of significant differences across conditions. While the facilitator’s competence and learning outcomes were rated higher in human (C1, C2) compared to robot (C3, C4) conditions, participants in the supervised robot condition (C4) experienced higher levels of focus, motivation, and relevance and a greater sense of control and sense of success, and rated their cognitive learning outcomes and the willingness to apply what was learned higher than in other conditions. These results indicate that human supervision during robot-led facilitation in collaborative learning (e.g., providing hints and situational information on demand) can be beneficial for learning experience and outcomes as it allows synergies to be created between human expertise and flexibility and the consistency of the robotic assistance.

Impact of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the Capacity to Perform Burpees: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has emerged as a potential intervention to improve physical performance. This study investigates the effects of tDCS applied to the primary motor cortex (M1) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on performance in a maximal effort task, specifically the No-Jump Burpee exercise. Twenty healthy male subjects (26.0 ± 4.91 years) completed three experimental conditions (a-DLPFC, a-M1, and SHAM) in a double-blind crossover design. Prior to the performance of burpees to exhaustion, tDCS (2 mA, 20 min) was administered. The total number of repetitions, vastus lateralis muscle oxygen saturation, heart rate, and subjective perception of exertion (RPE) during exercise were measured. Repeated ANOVAs showed a significant effect of condition on the number of repetitions (p < 0.001). Subjects performed more repetitions under the M1 condition (68 ± 19.5) compared to DLPFC (63 ± 17.9) and SHAM (58 ± 18.0), with significant differences between all conditions. This study demonstrates that tDCS can improve performance in a physical endurance task such as the No-Jump Burpee. The findings suggest that tDCS may be a viable ergogenic tool for improving athletic performance. Future research should explore the underlying mechanisms and the practical application of these results in long-term physical training programs (NCT06472882).

What are the principal and most effective strategies for motivational self-regulation? A systematic review and meta-analyses

The regulation of motivation is considered a key aspect of self-regulated learning (SRL) as it is presumed that maintaining an adequate level of motivation is essential for engagement, effort and persistence in academic tasks. In this review, we aimed to improve our understanding of motivational regulation strategies, their supposed antecedents and the educational implications. A search was conducted in Web of Science, Scopus, PsycInfo, and ERIC databases. Of 4027 records identified, 64 (75 studies) were deemed eligible after inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and studies with low methodological quality were discarded. Data on 18 different motivational regulation strategies were available. Extrinsic/controlling types of strategies were reported to be used more frequently than intrinsic/autonomous strategies. Motivational regulation strategies were significantly associated with metamotivational beliefs, academic skills and adjustment. Available evidence supports assumptions of theoretical models on antecedents and academic implications of motivational self-regulation. Educational impact and implications statementThe present study provides a compendium of the different motivational self-regulation strategies studied to date, describes the nature of these and unifies the different denominations used. The available evidence on the frequency of use of the different strategies that has been collected may be useful for educators, enabling them to anticipate and adapt to the status of the different motivational facets in students. Drawing on theoretical models of motivational self-regulation, the interconnections between the use of the strategies and their supposed antecedents and the expected educational implications were explored. This will provide researchers and educators with an interpretive framework to draw upon when adapting to interindividual diversity in strategy use and when assessing the compatibility between educational practices and the efficient use and training of motivational strategies.

Multi-stage incentive contract design of aviation complex product multi-task delivery strategy

The increasing demand for aviation complex products makes complex product manufacturers pay more attention to delivery efficiency, and the efficiency and effect of delivery problems are the key factors that restrict delivery efficiency. A series of delivery strategy combinations of delivery subjects will affect delivery output and delivery efficiency. This study aims to design a long-term effective incentive contract, which stimulates the subjective initiative of the subject and then investigates the effect of the incentive contract on delivery efficiency under different combinations of delivery strategies. We consider the behavioral characteristics of each technical business department to expand the benchmark incentive model, such as the degree of perceived revenue fairness, the variation of the three relationships (neutrality, competition, and cooperation), and the level of technological transformation capability. The multi-stage incentive mechanism which combines explicit incentives and implicit incentives is developed to explore the optimal delivery strategies based on a benchmark model. The results show that incentive contracts can improve delivery efficiency and benefit delivery centers and technical business departments. The delivery decisions of the department are influenced by the closeness of department relationships and the fairness of assignment, and the departments tend to pay more effort in tasks with high relative importance and low effort cost. When the relative importance of tasks is equal to the ratio of marginal cost, a weak incentive zone in the delivery incentive contract exists. The incentive effect of reputation effect is obvious except for the last stage. Based on the designed incentive contracts, the subjective initiative of the participants can be effectively stimulated to empower complex product delivery.

Too hard, too easy, or just right? The effects of context on effort and boredom aversion.

Despite people's general desire to avoid cognitive effort, there is a limit to our parsimony: boredom, a state defined by a lack of successful mental engagement, is found to be similarly aversive. The work presented here investigates how context - the alternative tasks present and the environmental context - impacts people's aversion to exerting cognitive effort and avoiding boredom via a demand-selection task. In a population of undergraduate students, we assessed how people's willingness to exert mental effort (in a working memory task) is affected by the presence of an easier alternative (less cognitively demanding) or a boring alternative (doing nothing at all). To manipulate environmental context, we conducted the experiment online, where participants completed the task remotely, and in a controlled laboratory setting. We find people willingly seek out effortful tasks to avoid boredom, despite avoiding high demands when both tasks on offer required some effort. We also find large effects of the participants' environmental context, with preferences for the most demanding task increasing by over 150% in the lab compared to online. These results bear relevance to theories that argue the costs of effort are determined relative to the alternatives available (e.g., opportunity cost theories). Moreover, the results demonstrate that researchers who deliberately (or inadvertently) manipulate effort and boredom must consider the effects context (both choice and environmental) may have on people's behaviour.

The role of self-confidence in teamwork: experimental evidence

Teamwork has become increasingly important in modern organizations and the labor market. Yet, little is known about the role of self-confidence in teamwork. In this paper, we present evidence from a laboratory experiment using a team effort task. Effort and ability are complements and there are synergies between teammates’ efforts. We exogenously manipulate subjects’ self-confidence about their ability using easy and hard general knowledge quizzes. We find that overconfidence leads to more effort, less free riding, and higher team revenue. This finding is primarily due to a direct effect of overconfidence on own effort provision, while there is no evidence that subjects strategically respond to the teammate’s overconfidence.

Structural Change, Elite Capitalism, and the Emergence of Labour Emancipation

Abstract This study argues that the decline of coercive labour institutions over the course of industrialization was partly driven by complementarity between physical capital and effective labour in manufacturing. Given the difficulty of extracting labour effort in care-intensive industrial tasks through monitoring and punishment, capital-owning elites ultimately chose to emancipate workers to induce their supply of effective labour and, thus, boost the return to physical capital. This hypothesis is empirically examined in the context of serf emancipation in nineteenth-century Prussia. Exploiting variation in proto-industrialization across Prussian counties, the analysis finds that, consistent with the proposed hypothesis, the initial abundance of elite-owned physical capital is associated with a higher pace of serf emancipation and lower redemption payments to manorial lords.

Incentive-Induced Social Tie and Subsequent Altruism and Cooperation

Abstract In this paper, we studied the spillover effects of cooperative and competitive incentive schemes on subsequent decisions involving altruism and cooperation. We collected data with a laboratory experiment where subjects were asked to perform Mini Dictator games and a Public Good game after playing an incentivized real effort task. We found that cooperative incentives foster higher subsequent altruism and cooperation as compared with competitive or individual incentives. By contrast, competitive incentives induced more envy towards competitor peers and more spiteful behaviour when giving implies a larger payoff for the recipient. The effect of incentives on altruism and cooperation was moderated by relative rank in the incentivized effort task and by individual level of impulsivity.

Pupillary responses as a biomarker of cognitive effort and the impact of task difficulty on reward processing in schizophrenia

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia robustly predict functional outcomes but remain relatively resistant to available treatments. Better measures of negative symptoms, especially motivational deficits, are needed to better understand these symptoms and improve treatment development. Recent research shows promise in linking behavioral effort tasks to motivational negative symptoms, reward processing deficits, and defeatist attitudes, but few studies account for individual or group (patient v. control) differences in cognitive ability to perform the tasks. Individuals with poorer abilities might be less motivated to perform tasks because they find them more difficult to perform. This study used a personalized digit span task to control task difficulty while measuring task effort via pupillary responses (greater dilation indicates greater cognitive effort) at varying monetary rewards ($1 & $2). Participants with schizophrenia (N = 34) and healthy controls (N = 41) performed a digit span task with personalized max span lengths and easy (max− 2 digits) and overload (max+ 2 digits) conditions. Consistent with many studies, pupillary responses (cognitive effort) increased with greater difficulty until exceeding capacity. A similar pattern of reward responsivity was seen in both groups, such that greater reward increased dilation (effort) comparably for both groups when difficulty was within capacity. Neither patients nor controls exerted increased effort for greater reward when difficulty exceeded capacity. In patients, positive relationships were found between pupil dilation and defeatist performance beliefs if task difficulty was within capacity; a relationship that reversed if the task was too difficult. The findings demonstrate the importance of accounting for cognitive capacity and task difficulty when evaluating motivation and reward sensitivity and illustrate the utility of pupillary responses as an objective measure of effort in schizophrenia.

The contribution of sensory information asymmetry and bias of attribution to egocentric tendencies in effort comparison tasks.

When comparing themselves with others, people often evaluate their own behaviors more favorably. This egocentric tendency is often categorized as a bias of attribution, with favorable self-evaluation resulting from differing explanations of one's own behavior and that of others. However, studies on information availability in social contexts offer an alternative explanation, ascribing egocentric biases to the inherent informational asymmetries between performing an action and merely observing it. Since biases of attribution and availability often co-exist and interact with each other, it is not known whether they are both necessary for the egocentric biases to emerge. In this study, we used a design that allowed us to directly compare the contribution of these two distinct sources of bias to judgements about the difficulty of an effortful task. Participants exhibited no attribution bias as judgements made for themselves did not differ from those made for others. Importantly, however, participants perceived the tasks they actively performed to be harder than the tasks they observed, and this bias was magnified as the overall task difficulty increased. These findings suggest that information asymmetries inherent to the difference between actively performing a task and observing it can drive egocentric biases in effort evaluations on their own and without a contribution from biases of attribution.

A Review of the Use of Gaze and Pupil Metrics to Assess Mental Workload in Gamified and Simulated Sensorimotor Tasks.

Gaze and pupil metrics are used to represent higher cognitive processes in a variety of contexts. One growing area of research is the real-time assessment of workload and corresponding effort in gamified or simulated cognitive and motor tasks, which will be reviewed in this paper. While some measurements are consistent across studies, others vary and are likely dependent on the nature of the effort required by the task and the resulting changes in arousal. Pupil diameter is shown to consistently increase with task effort and arousal; however, the valence of arousal must be considered. In many cases, measures of pupil diameter were sensitive to both excessive and insufficient challenge. Overall, it is evident that gaze and pupil metrics are valuable to assess the cognitive state during gamified and simulated tasks, and further research is indicated regarding their use in clinical populations in rehabilitation to inform optimally engaging interventions.

Effort expenditure modulates feedback evaluations involving self-other agreement: evidence from brain potentials and neural oscillations.

The influence of effort expenditure on the subjective value in feedback involving material reward has been the focus of previous research. However, little is known about the impact of effort expenditure on subjective value evaluations when feedback involves reward that is produced in the context of social interaction (e.g. self-other agreement). Moreover, how effort expenditure influences confidence (second-order subjective value) in feedback evaluations remains unclear. Using electroencephalography, this study aimed to address these questions. Event-related potentials showed that, after exerting high effort, participants exhibited increased reward positivity difference in response to self-other (dis)agreement feedback. After exerting low effort, participants reported high confidence, and the self-other disagreement feedback evoked a larger P3a. Time-frequency analysis showed that the high-effort task evoked increased frontal midline theta power. In the low (vs. high)-effort task, the frontal midline delta power for self-other disagreement feedback was enhanced. These findings suggest that, at the early feedback evaluation stage, after exerting high effort, individuals exhibit an increased sensitivity of subjective value evaluation in response to self-other agreement feedback. At the later feedback evaluation stage, after completing the low-effort task, the self-other disagreement feedback violates the individuals'high confidence and leads to a metacognitive mismatch.