University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Jun;74(6):991-1006. doi: 10.1177/17470218211005759. Epub 2021 Mar 27.
Cognitive effort is a central construct in our lives, yet our understanding of the processes underlying our perception of effort is limited. Performance is typically used as one way to assess effort in cognitive tasks (e.g., tasks that take longer are generally thought to be more effortful); however, Dunn and Risko reported a recent case where such "objective" measures of effort were dissociated from judgements of effort (i.e., subjective effort). This dissociation occurred when participants either made their judgements of effort after the task (i.e., reading stimuli composed of rotated words) or without ever performing the task. This leaves open the possibility that if participants made their judgements of effort more proximal to the actual experience of performing the task (e.g., right after a given trial) that these judgements might better correspond to putatively "objective" measures of effort. To address this question, we conducted two experiments replicating Dunn and Risko with additional probes for post-trial judgements of effort (i.e., a judgement of effort made right after each trial). Results provided some support for the notion that judgements of effort more closely follow reading times when made post-trial as opposed to post-task. Implications of the present work for our understanding of judgements of effort are discussed.
认知努力是我们生活中的一个核心概念，但我们对感知努力背后的过程的理解是有限的。表现通常被用作评估认知任务中努力程度的一种方法（例如，需要更长时间的任务通常被认为更费力）；然而，Dunn 和 Risko 最近报道了一个案例，其中这种“客观”的努力衡量标准与努力的判断（即主观努力）分离。当参与者在任务后（即阅读由旋转单词组成的刺激）或从未执行任务时做出努力判断时，就会出现这种分离。这使得如果参与者在更接近执行任务的实际体验时做出努力判断（例如，在给定试验后立即），这些判断可能更符合所谓的“客观”努力衡量标准成为可能。为了解决这个问题，我们进行了两项实验，复制了 Dunn 和 Risko 的实验，并增加了对试验后努力判断的额外探测（即在每次试验后立即进行的努力判断）。结果为这样一种观点提供了一些支持，即与任务后相比，试验后做出的努力判断更接近阅读时间。本文对努力判断的理解的意义进行了讨论。
