Investment Of Mental Effort Research Articles

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.

A Motivational Perspective on (Anticipated) Mental Effort Investment: The Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat

Research in cognitive load theory is increasingly recognizing the importance of motivational influences on students’ (willingness to invest) mental effort, in particular in the context of self-regulated learning. Consequently, next to addressing effects of instructional conditions and contexts on groups of learners, there is a need to start investigating individual differences in motivational variables. We propose here that the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat may offer a useful model to study the motivational antecedents of (anticipated) mental effort. We also report four experiments as initial tests of these ideas, exploring how feedback valence affects students’ challenge/threat experiences, self-efficacy, and mental effort investment. The results showed that negative feedback leads participants to expect that they will have to invest significantly more effort in future problems than positive feedback (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or no feedback (Experiment 3). Had we not considered the motivational variables in investigating the effect of feedback conditions on effort investment, we would not have known that this effect was fully mediated and thus explained by participants’ feelings of self-efficacy (Experiments 1/2) and threat (Experiment 1). We would also have concluded that feedback does not affect the willingness to invest effort in future problems (all four experiments), whereas actually, there were significant indirect effects of feedback on willingness to invest effort via challenge (in Experiments 1/2) and threat (in all experiments). Thus, our findings demonstrate the added value of considering challenge and threat motivational states to explain individual differences in effort investment.

Working hard but not tired? The influence of task valuation on mental fatigue, effort investment, and task performance.

It has been demonstrated in previous studies that prolonged mental effort exertion evokes mental fatigue and leads to impairments in task performance. In the current investigation, we aimed to test the hypothesis that mental fatigue depends on motivational processes and can be influenced by task valuation. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated the value of the task by financial rewards (Study 1) and the sense of autonomy (Study 2). Contrary to our predictions, those manipulations did not influence the main dependent variables. We also introduced additional rewards after prolonged effort exertion. In line with our expectations, the results showed that mental fatigue increases with time spent on effortful tasks. Importantly, however, mental fatigue decreases when the value of the task rises. This effect is accompanied by stronger effort engagement and improvement in task performance. The findings support the motivational theories of mental effort and fatigue, showing that mental fatigue might serve as a signal of diminishing value of the ongoing task.

Measured increases in steering entropy may predict when performance will degrade: A driving simulator study

We investigated the effect of time-on-task on driver’s mental workload and driving performance during a simulated driving task. The extent of mental workload was estimated from steering entropy, while driver performance was measured from the Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP) and the Standard Deviation (SD) Sterring Angle. Seventeen participants underwent a simulated highway driving task for 60 min. The results show that mental workload increased significantly after 15 min, whereas driving performance did not degrade until 30 min. These results suggest that when drivers first affected by time-on-task, they can cope with the situation by increasing mental effort investment and can manage to perform normally for a while (15 min). Since changes in steering entropy precede changes in driving performance, this measure of mental workload may have utility as a predictor of increased accident risk.

University Students’ Perceptions of the Use of Technologies in Educational Activities and Mental Effort Invested

Different generations (digital natives, resident students, generation Y, X, or Z) show a preference towards technologies and the digital world. This "ex-post-facto" study is presented to learn the preferences that university students have regarding the use of different resources for various educational activities, as well as the investment of mental effort and perceived ease of learning concerning different means and technological resources. The sampling used is non-probabilistic, conventional, and intentional. 2,148 university students from different scientific fields of twelve Spanish public universities participate in it. To do this, an "ad hoc" instrument is designed whose data show high reliability and validity indices. The results indicate that students tend to have different perceptions regarding the various means and resources presented, in terms of the level of mental effort needed, along with the degree of easiness to learn through them. In this sense, the casuistry of the results is discussed and compared with the theory of mental effort proposed by Salomon (1981). The findings can be explained by the result of the interaction of three elements: the symbolic systems mobilized to elaborate messages, the message, and the technology that packages, formalizes, and transmits them. In the same way, it concludes by discussing the applicability of the results for the improvement of the digital competence of the students.

Dynamic visual support is superior to its static counterpart in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures

ABSTRACT Recent studies have shown the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations in learning different motor skills in the physical education (PE) domain, due to the activation of the mirror-neuron system. However, these past investigations were based solely on instructional materials with short durations (few seconds). It is yet unknown whether this superiority remains valid in learning from materials with long durations (e.g., more than 2-minutes). We attempted to fill this knowledge gap with the present experiment by exploring the effects of dynamic and static visual supports in learning a series of Judo refereeing gestures and attitudes in PE students. Sixty-seven novice practitioners (Mage = 20.5 years, SD = 0.6 years, 27 males and 40 females) voluntarily participated in the current project. They were randomly exposed to the dynamic or static visual supports (study phase), and asked to rate their mental effort invested, perform a recall-performance test, and indicate their attitudes (in terms of attention, motivation, enjoyment, interestingness, and self-efficacy), immediately following the study phase. The results showed that a dynamic visual support guaranteed better learning outcomes in the students (as evidenced by the more favourable relationship between mental effort investment and recall performances). However, data analysis demonstrated that participants exposed to both visual supports reported similar attitudes. These findings have implications for the effective design of external visual tools in the PE domain and provide confirmation on the superiority of dynamic over static visualisations for learning motor skills (Judo refereeing gestures), even if through instructional materials with long durations.

Searching to improve learning from complex animated basketball scenes: when decreasing the presentation speed is more efficient than using segmentation

ABSTRACT In two separate experiments, the authors investigated how a complex animated basketball scene should be designed in order to avoid the high cognitive load due to the transient nature of information. Using system-paced segments and decreasing the video’s presentation speed were tested as instructional strategies to reduce students’ cognitive load. The effectiveness of continuous versus segmented videos was explored in the first experiment. The second experiment compared the effectiveness of normal versus low levels of presentation speed. The results indicated that while the segmentation strategy has no significant effect on learning outcomes, students profited more from the low than the normal presentation speed, as evidenced by the more favourable relationship between mental effort investment and game performance. These findings suggest that decreasing the presentation speed is an efficient instructional strategy that helps to improve learning from complex animated basketball scenes.

Objective Versus Subjective Effort in Schizophrenia.

Background and ObjectivesPerformance on cognitive tasks is often impaired in individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ), possibly resulting from either cognitive deficits (e.g., limited working memory capacity) or diminished mental effort or both. Investment of mental effort itself can be affected by cognitive resources, task load, and motivational factors and has thus proven difficult to measure. Pupil dilation during task performance has been proposed as an objective measure, but it remains unclear to what extent this converges with self-reports of perceived task demands, motivation, and invested effort. The current study tried to elucidate this question.MethodsA visual version of the digit span task was administered in a sample of 29 individuals with a diagnosis from the SCZ spectrum and 30 individuals without any psychiatric disorder. Pupil size was recorded during the task, whereas self-reported invested effort and task demand were measured afterward.ResultsNo group difference was found for working memory capacity, but individuals with SCZ showed diminished trial-by-trial recall accuracy, showed reduced pupil dilation across all task load conditions, and reported higher perceived task demands.ConclusionResults indicate reduced effort investment in patients with SCZ, but it remains unclear to what extent this alone could explain the lower recall performance. The lack of a direct link between objective and subjective measures of effort further suggests that both may assess different facets of effort. This has important implications for clinical and research settings that rely on the reliability of neuropsychological test results when assessing cognitive capacity in this patient group.

Evaluating advanced driver-assistance system trainings using driver performance, attention allocation, and neural efficiency measures

There are about 44 million licensed older drivers in the U.S. Older adults have higher crash rates and fatalities as compared to middle-aged and young drivers, which might be associated with degradations in sensory, cognitive, and physical capabilities. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) have the potential to substantially improve safety by removing some of driver vehicle control responsibilities. However, a critical aspect of providing ADAS is educating drivers on their operational characteristics and continued use. Twenty older adults participated in a driving simulation study assessing the effectiveness of video-based and demonstration-based training protocols in learning ADAS considering gender differences. The findings revealed video-based training to be more effective than demonstration-based training in improving driver performance and reducing off-road visual attention allocation and mental workload. In addition, female drivers required lower investment of mental effort (higher neural efficiency) to maintain the performance relative to males and they were less distracted by ADAS. However, male drivers were faster in activating ADAS as compared to females since they were monitoring the status of ADAS features more frequently while driving. The findings of this study provided an empirical support for using video-based approach for learning ADAS in older adults to improve driver safety and supported previous findings on older adults’ learning that as age increases there is a tendency to prefer more passive and observational learning methods.

Four Ways of Considering Emotion in Cognitive Load Theory

We discuss four ways in which emotion may relate to cognitive load during learning. One perspective describes emotions as extraneous cognitive load, competing for the limited resources of working memory by requiring the processing of task-extra or task-irrelevant information. Another perspective shows that encoding, storage, and retrieval of information are affected by emotion even before awareness of the material, and that emotion may directly affect memory by broadening or narrowing cognitive resources, and by mechanisms such as mood-dependent and mood-congruent processing. A third perspective describes how emotion may affect intrinsic cognitive load, such as when emotion regulation is part of the learning outcomes. We also discuss a dual-channel assumption for emotions. A final perspective is that emotion affects motivation, and, in turn, mental effort investment. These four ways of considering emotion as part of CLT are best understood when taking an interval view of cognitive load.

Cognitive Load as Motivational Cost

Research on cognitive load theory (CLT) has focused primarily on identifying the mechanisms and strategies that enhance cognitive learning outcomes. However, CLT researchers have given less attention to the ways in which cognitive load may interact with the motivational and emotional aspects of learning. Motivational beliefs have typically been assumed to be merely a precursor to the cognitive process. This view provides an incomplete picture of the dynamic relationship between cognitive load and motivational beliefs. In this review, we synthesize previous scholarly efforts concerning the motivational effects of anticipated investment of mental effort, new developments in the expectancy-value theory of motivation, and recent findings implicating cognitive load in the formulation of motivational beliefs. By conceptualizing cognitive load as motivational cost, we argue that motivational beliefs are an important outcome that results from instruction. We examine recent empirical evidence supporting this proposition and consider the implications for the further development of both CLT and motivational theories through their integration.

Heart rate variability reflects the effects of emotional design principle on mental effort in multimedia learning

Recent studies have indicated that there are benefits to be derived from incorporating emotional design principles into multimedia lessons. However, the results of how this principle affects the amount of mental effort that is exerted in learning have been mixed. In this study, the effect of the emotional design principle on individuals' mental effort investment was examined using effort-related physiological measures (i.e., heart rate variability). Sixty college participants, of whom 30 were in a positive emotional design group and the remaining 30 in a neutral emotional design (control) group, received a six-minute-long set of biology multimedia instructions. Compared to the participants in the neutral design group, the participants in the positive emotional design group performed better on a subsequent retention test and had a stronger decrease in the high-frequency band of heart rate variability in the instruction session. These findings are consistent with the affective mediation assumption of Cognitive Affective Theory of Learning with Media and indicate the potential importance of including affective and motivational factors in multimedia learning research.

Voluntary modulation of mental effort investment: an fMRI study

Mental effort is a common phenomenological construct deeply linked to volition and self-control. While it is often assumed that the amount of exertion invested in a task can be voluntarily regulated, the neural bases of such faculty and its behavioural effects are yet insufficiently understood. In this study, we investigated how the instructions to execute a demanding cognitive task either “with maximum exertion” or “as relaxed as possible” affected performance and brain activity. The maximum exertion condition, compared to relaxed execution, was associated with speeded motor responses without an accuracy trade-off, and an amplification of both task-related activations in dorsal frontoparietal and cerebellar regions, and task-related deactivations in default mode network (DMN) areas. Furthermore, the visual cue to engage maximum effort triggered an anticipatory widespread increase of activity in attentional, sensory and executive regions, with its peak in the brain stem reticular activating system. Across individuals, this surge of activity in the brain stem, but also in medial wall cortical regions projecting to the adrenal medulla, positively correlated with increases in heart rate, suggesting that the intention to willfully modulate invested effort involves mechanisms related to catecholaminergic transmission and a suppression of DMN activity in favor of externally-directed attentional processes.

Increasing the effectiveness of digital educational games: The effects of a learning instruction on students’ learning, motivation and cognitive load

This study examines the effects of integrating instructional support in the form of a prompt that highlights the importance of learning from the educational game. We set out to answer the question of whether or not it is necessary to indicate an educational game as a learning material (in contrast to pure entertainment) to facilitate learning relevant for school. Research on entertainment media suggests that the implementation of such a learning instruction increases learners’ investment of mental effort and, thus, the learning outcome. Then again, learning instruction as an extrinsic incentive might negatively influence intrinsic motivation and extraneous cognitive load. Therefore, this study examines the effects of learning instruction on students’ intrinsic motivation, cognitive load, and learning with a digital educational game. We carried out a one-factor (learning instruction: yes/no) experimental design with N = 150 participants (age 13 to 17). Results indicate that the learning instruction increased task-irrelevant processing and decreased the learning outcome. Thus, adding an explicit learning instruction is not recommended. On the contrary, our results suggest that playing just for fun enhances the effectiveness of such a learning environment.

Is there a role for direct instruction in problem-based learning? Comparing student-constructed versus integrated model answers

Problem-based learning (PBL) requires students to formulate learning issues that need to be answered by studying multiple literature resources. Advocates of high instructional guidance argue that this is too cognitively demanding for students and ineffective for learning. Therefore, we examined the effects of studying an integrated model answer in the self-study phase in PBL. Participants (N = 62) engaged in a simulated group discussion, ending with the establishment of learning issues. Then they either studied integrated model answers to the learning issues, or undertook a standard PBL self-study phase in which students needed to construct their own answers based on multiple literature resources. Higher learning outcomes were obtained for the participants who studied integrated model answers when compared to the participants who constructed their own answers. These higher learning outcomes were obtained with lower investment of self-study and equal investment of mental effort during learning.

Neural correlates of mental effort evaluation— involvement of structures related to self-awareness

Mental effort is a limited resource which must be invested to perform mental tasks. The amount of mental effort investment that an individual experiences during task performance can be measured afterwards with the help of self-rating scales. Earlier research suggests that integration of information about somatic state changes is crucial for the self-evaluation of mental effort investment. Damage to the pathways which convey information about somatic state changes can lead to an inability to self-evaluate mental effort investment, while conceptually similar evaluations of task difficulty can still be performed. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activation, while subjects rated their mental effort investment and the difficulty of a previously performed task. Our results show stronger activation of the left anterior insular cortex (aIC) during evaluation of mental effort. Additionally, the activity in left aIC during task performance was modulated by changes in task demand in a similar way as the self-ratings of mental effort. We argue that aIC does not only play a role in the integration of self-related information during self-evaluation of mental effort investment, but that left aIC might also be involved in the experience of mental effort during task performance.

Attentional Focus and Performance Anxiety: Effects on Simulated Race-Driving Performance and Heart Rate Variability

Previous studies have demonstrated that an external focus can enhance motor learning compared to an internal focus. The benefits of adopting an external focus are attributed to the use of less effortful automatic control processes, while an internal focus relies upon more effort-intensive consciously controlled processes. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of a distal external focus with an internal focus in the acquisition of a simulated driving task and subsequent performance in a competitive condition designed to increase state anxiety. To provide further evidence for the automatic nature of externally controlled movements, the study included heart rate variability (HRV) as an index of mental effort. Sixteen participants completed eight blocks of four laps in either a distal external or internal focus condition, followed by two blocks of four laps in the competitive condition. During acquisition, the performance of both groups improved; however, the distal external focus group outperformed the internal focus group. The poorer performance of the internal focus group was accompanied by a larger reduction in HRV, indicating a greater investment of mental effort. In the competition condition, state anxiety increased, and for both groups, performance improved as a function of the increased anxiety. Increased heart rate and self-reported mental effort accompanied the performance improvement. The distal external focus group also outperformed the internal focus group across both neutral and competitive conditions and this more effective performance was again associated with lower levels of HRV. Overall, the results offer support for the suggestion that an external focus promotes a more automatic mode of functioning. In the competitive condition, both foci enhanced performance and while the improved performance may have been achieved at the expense of greater compensatory mental effort, this was not reflected in HRV scores.

Effects of performance feedback on cardiovascular reactivity and frontal EEG asymmetry

The process of goal-setting may be captured by psychophysiological variables, such as cardiovascular reactivity (representative of effort mobilisation) and frontal EEG asymmetry (motivational disposition). The current study exposed 32 participants to false performance feedback in order to manipulate goal-setting and mental effort investment. Participants performed five consecutive blocks of the n-back task and received false performance feedback. One group received repeated positive feedback (i.e. performance steadily improved over the five blocks) whilst a second group were exposed to repeated negative feedback (i.e. performance deterioration over five blocks). Blood pressure, power in the mid-frequency and high-frequency component of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), heart rate, frontal EEG asymmetry and subjective self-assessment data were collected. Sustained and repeated positive feedback led to increased systolic blood pressure reactivity and a suppression of the 0.1 Hz component of HRV. Increased relative left hemisphere activation was observed at F3/F4 and FC1/FC2 over successive task blocks in the presence of feedback regardless of positive or negative direction. It is argued that upward goal adjustment accounted for the psychophysiological changes observed in the positive feedback condition.

An expertise reversal effect of segmentation in learning from animated worked-out examples

Many animations impose a high cognitive load due to the transience of information, which often hampers learning. Segmentation, that is presenting animations in pieces (i.e., segments), has been proposed as a means to reduce this high cognitive load. The expertise reversal effect shows, however, that design measures that have a positive effect on cognitive load and learning for students with lower levels of prior knowledge, might not be effective, or might even have a negative effect on cognitive load and learning for students with higher levels of prior knowledge. This experiment with animated worked-out examples showed an expertise reversal effect of segmentation: segmented animations were more efficient than continuous animations (i.e., equal test performance with lower investment of mental effort during learning) for students with lower levels of prior knowledge, but not for students with higher levels of prior knowledge.

The influence of performance feedback on goal-setting and mental effort regulation

Goal-setting and mental effort investment may be influenced by the perception of success or failure. The aim of the current study was to investigate the dynamics of motivational intensity model using false performance feedback. Forty participants performed a demanding cognitive task over five successive (5 min) blocks. Participants received performance feedback of either progressive success or progressive failure. A number of psychophysiological variables were used to index mental effort investment and emotion, including: HRV components, blood pressure, skin conductance level, EEG, and facial EMG. Subjective estimates of mood, workload and motivation were also collected alongside performance measures. The success group experienced positive affect and a less pronounced decline in subjective motivation in response to a perception of successful achievement. In contrast, feedback of failure led to adverse changes in mood/motivation, but did not lead to the absolute withdrawal of effort, although trends in the psychophysiological data suggest that participants in the failure group were on the verge of abandoning the task. The implications of these findings are discussed within the context of goal-setting and effort regulation models.