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The subjective effort of everyday mental tasks: Attending, assessing, and choosing

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Abstract

Why are some mental tasks experienced as more effortful than others? Answers to this question about subjective effort have begun to be addressed by researchers investigating why some mental tasks are associated with more ‘elbow grease’ or ‘depletion’ than other tasks. It has been proposed that tasks such as sustained attention should be accompanied by more subjective effort than other tasks, such as assessing (e.g., counting a handful of items) or choosing randomly between two alternatives. In general, these proposals coincide with people’s intuitions regarding how effort should vary by mental task. However, little laboratory data have corroborated these conclusions. In two studies, we cataloged the relative amount of subjective effort associated with some basic and ubiquitous mental activities: attending (most subjective effort), assessing, and choosing (least subjective effort). Results support hypotheses about subjective effort. Because subjective effort is perceived to be experienced by a subject, we explored also the relationship between effort and the involvement of the ‘psychological self.’

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Notes

  1. It should be specified that, in this article, we focus only on the subjective effort associated with mental tasks and not on that associated with physical activity. For a comprehensive review of the psychology of effort, one that includes both mental activity and physical activity, see Hockey (2013). For a recent review of the subjective effort associated with physical activity, see Noakes (2012).

  2. A related criticism may be that we did not match our tasks regarding overall difficulty and that our tasks tax the cognitive system differently. To respond to this criticism, it could be stated that, first, there are no objective benchmarks for task-difficulty outside of performance measures and self-report; and, second, the perceived differences in difficulty/effort across tasks is precisely the phenomenon we set out to study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, EP 301, San Francisco, CA, 94132-4168, USA

    Maria M. Robinson & Ezequiel Morsella

  2. Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Ezequiel Morsella

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  1. Maria M. Robinson
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Appendix: Questions from the Assessing Task (25 trials)

Appendix: Questions from the Assessing Task (25 trials)

Which shape is more complex?

Which shape stands out more?

Which shape is greener?

Which shape is more circular?

Which shape has more intersection points?

What shape has more of its area shaded?

Which shape looks more like heart?

Which shape has more corners?

Which shape is more square-like?

Which shape has a lighter outline?

Which shape is made out of smaller shapes?

Which shape covers more area?

Which shape has a groove in it?

Which shape looks more like a brick?

Which shape has fewer angles?

Which shape is more symmetrical?

Which shape has a squiggle?

Which shape has three triangles in a row?

Which shape looks easier to balance?

Which shape folds in on itself?

Which shape looks more turtle-like?

Which shape is more simple?

Which shape has a groove in it?

Which shape has a curve?

Which shape is darker?

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Robinson, M.M., Morsella, E. The subjective effort of everyday mental tasks: Attending, assessing, and choosing. Motiv Emot 38, 832–843 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-014-9441-2

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