Viola Vanda, Tosoni Annalisa, Brizi Ambra, Salvato Ilaria, Kruglanski Arie W, Galati Gaspare, Mannetti Lucia
Department of Psychology, University of Rome ''La Sapienza'', Rome, Italy.
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, Foundation Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.
PLoS One. 2015 Dec 30;10(12):e0146002. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146002. eCollection 2015.
The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which Need for Cognitive Closure (NCC), an individual-level epistemic motivation, can explain inter-individual variability in the cognitive effort invested on a perceptual decision making task (the random motion task). High levels of NCC are manifested in a preference for clarity, order and structure and a desire for firm and stable knowledge. The study evaluated how NCC moderates the impact of two variables known to increase the amount of cognitive effort invested on a task, namely task ambiguity (i.e., the difficulty of the perceptual discrimination) and outcome relevance (i.e., the monetary gain associated with a correct discrimination). Based on previous work and current design, we assumed that reaction times (RTs) on our motion discrimination task represent a valid index of effort investment. Task ambiguity was associated with increased cognitive effort in participants with low or medium NCC but, interestingly, it did not affect the RTs of participants with high NCC. A different pattern of association was observed for outcome relevance; high outcome relevance increased cognitive effort in participants with moderate or high NCC, but did not affect the performance of low NCC participants. In summary, the performance of individuals with low NCC was affected by task difficulty but not by outcome relevance, whereas individuals with high NCC were influenced by outcome relevance but not by task difficulty; only participants with medium NCC were affected by both task difficulty and outcome relevance. These results suggest that perceptual decision making is influenced by the interaction between context and NCC.
本研究的目的是评估个体层面的认知动机——认知闭合需求（NCC），在多大程度上能够解释在感知决策任务（随机运动任务）中投入的认知努力的个体间差异。高水平的NCC表现为对清晰、秩序和结构的偏好，以及对确定和稳定知识的渴望。该研究评估了NCC如何调节已知会增加任务中认知努力投入量的两个变量的影响，即任务模糊性（即感知辨别难度）和结果相关性（即与正确辨别相关的金钱收益）。基于先前的研究工作和当前的设计，我们假设在我们的运动辨别任务中的反应时间（RTs）代表了努力投入的有效指标。任务模糊性与低或中等NCC参与者认知努力的增加相关，但有趣的是，它并未影响高NCC参与者的反应时间。对于结果相关性，观察到了不同的关联模式；高结果相关性增加了中等或高NCC参与者的认知努力，但并未影响低NCC参与者的表现。总之，低NCC个体的表现受任务难度影响，但不受结果相关性影响，而高NCC个体受结果相关性影响，但不受任务难度影响；只有中等NCC参与者同时受任务难度和结果相关性影响。这些结果表明，感知决策受情境与NCC之间相互作用的影响。
