Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 8;9(1):1689. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37802-1.
The law of least mental effort states that, everything else being equal, the brain tries to minimize mental effort expenditure during task performance by avoiding decisions that require greater cognitive demands. Prior studies have shown associations between disruptions in effort expenditure and specific psychiatric illnesses (e.g., schizophrenia and depression) or clinically-related symptoms and traits (e.g., anhedonia and apathy), yet no research has explored this issue transdiagnostically. Specifically, this research has largely focused on a single diagnostic category, symptom, or trait. However, abnormalities in effort expression could be related to several different psychiatrically-relevant constructs that cut across diagnostic boundaries. Therefore, we examined the relationship between avoidance of mental effort and a diverse set of clinically-related symptoms and traits, and transdiagnostic latent factors in a large sample (n = 811). Only lack of perseverance, a dimension of impulsiveness, was associated with increased avoidance of mental effort. In contrast, several constructs were associated with less mental effort avoidance, including positive urgency, distress intolerance, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, disordered eating, and a factor consisting of compulsive behavior and intrusive thoughts. These findings demonstrate that deviations from normative effort expenditure are associated with a number of constructs that are common to several forms of psychiatric illness.
省力法则指出，在任务执行过程中，大脑会尽力避免需要更高认知要求的决策，以最小化心理努力的消耗。先前的研究表明，努力消耗的中断与特定的精神疾病（例如精神分裂症和抑郁症）或与临床相关的症状和特征（例如快感缺失和冷漠）之间存在关联，但没有研究从跨诊断的角度探讨这个问题。具体来说，这项研究主要集中在单一的诊断类别、症状或特征上。然而，努力表达的异常可能与跨越诊断边界的几个不同的与精神相关的结构有关。因此，我们在一个大样本（n=811）中检查了避免心理努力与一系列不同的与临床相关的症状和特征以及跨诊断潜在因素之间的关系。只有缺乏毅力，冲动的一个维度，与增加的避免心理努力有关。相比之下，一些结构与较少的心理努力回避有关，包括积极的紧迫感、痛苦耐受力差、强迫症状、饮食障碍以及由强迫行为和侵入性思维组成的一个因素。这些发现表明，偏离正常的努力消耗与几种常见于多种精神疾病的结构有关。
