The feeling of effort during mental activity.
Erik Bijleveld
Consciousness and Cognition August 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.05.013 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Preregistered experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Participants performing difficult versus easy cognitive tasks |
| Measures | feeling of effort, pupil dilation |
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Consciousness Feeling of effort Physiological effort Pupil dilation |
| Key findings | Across two preregistered experiments, difficult cognitive tasks increased the feeling of effort, but this effect was not explained by concurrent increases in physiological effort measured via pupil dilation. The author proposes that the feeling of effort during mental activity stems from the decision to exert physiological effort rather than from physiological effort itself. |
Abstract
The feeling of effort is familiar to most, if not all, humans. Prior research shows that the feeling of effort shapes judgments (e.g., of agency) and decisions (e.g., to quit the current task) in various ways, but the proximal causes of the feeling of effort are not well understood. In this research, I address these proximal causes. In particular, I conducted two preregistered experiments in which participants performed a difficult vs. easy cognitive task, while I measured effort-related phenomenology (feeling of effort) and physiology (pupil dilation) on a moment-to-moment basis. In both experiments, difficult tasks increased the feeling of effort; however, this effect could not be explained by concurrent increases in physiological effort. To explain these findings, I suggest that the feeling of effort during mental activity stems from the decision to exert physiological effort, rather than from physiological effort itself.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology | 2017 | Experimental study | |
| New World Tryptamine Hallucinogens and the Neuroscience of Ayahuasca. | 2018 | Review with original neuroimaging and neurophysiological data | |
| Differential contributions of serotonergic and dopaminergic functional connectivity to the phenomenology of LSD Healthy adults | 2022 | Secondary analysis of experimental data | n = 15 |
| TMS-EEG and resting-state EEG applied to altered states of consciousness: oscillations, complexity, and phenomenology. | 2023 | Experimental study | |
| Training novice practitioners to reliably report their meditation experience using shared phenomenological dimensions. Novice meditation practitioners | 2019 | Neurophenomenological experiment |