Unraveling the influence of task designs and intrinsic motivation in effort-based decision-making | Memory & Cognition | Springer Nature Link
Randez and Helie (2026)
Presenting results at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in San Francisco, CA.
This project examined demand-related choices across two experiments and found that people vary on the scale of cognitive misers and challenge-seeking behaviors
Experiment 1 used a within-subjects design in which participants were given choices among three task options at 2 demand levels (six options total) and a Bayesian analysis was used to compare preferences for demand-related versusgtr gf task-related decision-making. Results show that while some participants indicated demand-related preferences, others did not follow a utility decision model and pursued tasks for reasons outside of performance levels.
Experiment 2 used an algorithm that compared reward-related and demand-related decisions within-subjects and found evidence that people do not have a singular motivational system (i.e., cognitive miser or challenge-seeker) and instead make decisions in conjunction with intrinsic motivations and whether their decision influences monetary or cognitive demand outcomes.
These results suggest that people do not fall into a simple spectrum of motivational type, and suggest that extrinsic factors influence internal decision-making processes. That is, under certain circumstances people vary within how likely they are to seek or avoid cognitive challenges.
Frontiers | The roles of intrinsic motivation and capability-related factors in cognitive effort-based decision-making
Randez and Helie (2024)
Figures show task preferences for a motor (top) and a working memory/motor hybrid (bottom) task. Results indicated that participant distributions across demand avoidance (cognitive misers) and challenge-seeking can be influenced by the type of task rather than demand levels.
This project examined choices between two adapted demand levels and measured the distributions of participants who demonstrate low- or high-demand preferences across three task types.
Each demand level used an adaptive algorithm based on participants accuracy in the practice phrase to offer two demand levels that were catered to the individuals, rather than two pre-established demand levels.
This work was designed to measure demand preferences when the demand levels did not include general differences in ability to more closely examine how participants avoided or preference cognitive challenges. Results indicated that preferences varied, depending on the task type. For a spatial discrimination task (E1) and a motor task (E2, top figure), participants were more likely to be indifferent. However, in a hybrid task (E3, bottom figure) participants showed more variance in demand avoidance and challenge seeking
These results indicate that demand preferences can be influenced by differences in ability, task type, and intrinsic motivation. This pattern indicates that cognitive effort-based decision-making depends on more than a utility function and individual differences in motivation. Instead, it suggests that motivation is complex and can be influenced by an interaction of external and internal drivers.