Exploring the hardship of ease: Subjective and objective effort in the ease-of-processing paradigm

Helversen, Bettina von; Gendolla, Guido H. E.; Winkielman, Piotr; Schmidt, Ralph Erich

doi:10.1007/s11031-008-9080-6

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…; see Dechêne, Stahl, Hansen, & Wänke, 2009Hansen & Wänke, 2013;Undorf & Erdfelder, 2015). Several studies have shown that such subjective evaluations of the experienced retrieval fluency could have substantial impact (see von Helversen, Gendolla, Winkielman, & Schmidt, 2008;Wänke & Hansen, 2015).…”

Section: Small Impact Of Experimental Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures

et al. 2016

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In paired comparisons based on which of two objects has the larger criterion value, decision makers could use the subjectively experienced difference in retrieval fluency of the objects as a cue. According to the fluency heuristic (FH) theory, decision makers use fluency-as indexed by recognition speed-as the only cue for pairs of recognized objects, and infer that the object retrieved more speedily has the larger criterion value (ignoring all other cues and information). Model-based analyses, however, have previously revealed that only a small portion of such inferences are indeed based on fluency alone. In the majority of cases, other information enters the decision process. However, due to the specific experimental procedures, the estimates of FH use are potentially biased: Some procedures may have led to an overestimated and others to an underestimated, or even to actually reduced, FH use. In the present article, we discuss and test the impacts of such procedural variations by reanalyzing 21 data sets. The results show noteworthy consistency across the procedural variations revealing low FH use. We discuss potential explanations and implications of this finding.

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Section: Small Impact Of Experimental Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures

et al. 2016

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“…Like other forms of hardship, disfluency takes a physiological toll, raising the perceiver's heart rate and blood pressure (von Helversen, Gendolla, Winkielman, & Schmidt, 2008) and depleting limited cognitive resources (e.g., Anderson, 2003). The existing literature focuses almost entirely on processing difficulty in the immediate term, with tasks extending no more than a few minutes from beginning to end.…”

Section: Outstanding Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Benefits of Cognitive Disfluency

Alter

2013

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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People process new information along a continuum, from very fluently (with great ease) to very disfluently (with great difficulty). Researchers have long recognized that people prefer fluently processed stimuli across a broad range of dimensions. A more recent stream of research suggests that disfluency sometimes produces superior outcomes. In this review, I suggest that disfluency prompts people to process information more carefully, deeply, and abstractly, and mitigates the social problems of overdisclosure and reflexive xenophobia. I conclude by raising several remaining questions that warrant empirical attention.

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“…For some, a cognitively demanding task is a welcomed opportunity, for others such a task can’t end soon enough. Individual differences are evident in both what it feels like ‘in the moment’ to complete a mentally effortful task (e.g., this task is requiring a lot of effort; see for example, Paas, 1992 ; von Helversen et al, 2008 ; Robinson and Morsella, 2014 ) and ‘generalized thoughts and feelings’ about mental effort (e.g., I often find math questions require a lot of effort; see for example, Dornic et al, 1991 ; Cacioppo et al, 1996 ). This difference between effort in the moment and generalized thoughts and feelings largely maps onto the classic distinction between states and traits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in Perceived Mental Effort Required and Discomfort during a Working Memory Task between Individuals At-risk And Not At-risk for ADHD

2017

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Objective: The avoidance of mental effort is a symptom criterion for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but the experience of mental effort has received relatively little attention in the empirical study of individuals at-risk for ADHD. We explored a novel method to assess the experience of effort and discomfort during a working memory task in a sample of young adults at-risk and not at-risk for ADHD.Method: A sample of 235 undergraduate students (Mean age = 21.02, 86 males) were included in this study. Based on an ADHD-screener (ASRS), 136 participants met criteria for the ADHD-risk group and 99 were in the non-ADHD risk group.Results: Individuals at-risk for ADHD reported higher mental effort and discomfort than individuals not at-risk for ADHD, even when performance on the working memory task was comparable or statistically controlled. Mental effort required and discomfort were more strongly correlated for at-risk compared to not at-risk participants. Individuals at-risk for ADHD displayed a stronger correlation between mental effort required and actual accuracy, but individuals not at-risk for ADHD displayed a stronger association between perceived accuracy and actual accuracy for the hardest experimental conditions. The most intense moment of effort required predicted retrospective discomfort ratings of the task in the ADHD-risk group, but not in the non-risk group.Conclusion: The subjective experience of in the moment mental effort is an important and viable construct that should be more carefully defined and measured. In particular, the experience of effort required (or how taxing a task is) differentiated between individuals at-risk and individuals not at-risk for ADHD in the present study. Whereas previous ADHD research has explored effort exerted, the present work demonstrated that investigating the experience of being mentally taxed might provide a productive line of investigation that could be used to advance our understanding of the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying the regulation of effort in individuals at-risk of ADHD.

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Exploring the hardship of ease: Subjective and objective effort in the ease-of-processing paradigm

Abstract: Numerous

Cited by 10 publications

References 40 publications

The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures

The limited use of the fluency heuristic: Converging evidence across different procedures

The Benefits of Cognitive Disfluency

Differences in Perceived Mental Effort Required and Discomfort during a Working Memory Task between Individuals At-risk And Not At-risk for ADHD

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