Comparing effort perception in individual and joint action contexts

Abstract

In order to sustain cooperation, it is important that we have a sense that the distribution of efforts is fair. But how proficient are we at comparing our effort relative to that of others? Does the perception of our effort differ in individual and joint action contexts? To address these questions, we asked participants to squeeze a hand dynamometer at varying degrees of force to meet three target levels alone and with a partner. The results do not reveal a significant difference in the perception of effort between the two conditions. However, participants’ estimation of their effort skewed towards half when they made partial contribution to the target and this effect was more pronounced in the joint action. Taken together, the findings suggest that participants might have applied heuristics when perceiving their effort and in addition, expected fairness in the effortcontribution in a joint action context.

Perceiving others’ cognitive effort through movement: Path length, speed, and time

“…In view of the functional advantages to be gained from accurately assessing the amount of effort that others are investing in specific activities, it is no surprise that humans continuously track others' effort investment (Apps et al, 2016), and do so quite accurately (Liang et al, 2019), especially when the stakes are high (Ibbotson et al, 2019). Indeed, research by Gergely and Csibra (2003) shows that even infants as young as 12 months old rely on information about agents' effort costs to infer those agents' goals and to predict their actions.…”