In spite of its familiar phenomenology, the mechanistic basis for mental effort remains poorly
understood. Although most researchers agree that mental effort is aversive and stems from …

Cognitive effort has been implicated in numerous theories regarding normal and aberrant
behavior and the physiological response to engagement with demanding tasks. Yet, despite …

Achieving most goals demands cognitive control, yet people vary widely in their success at
meeting these demands. Although motivation is known to be fundamental to determining …

Despite its importance in everyday life, the computational nature of effort investment remains
poorly understood. We propose an effort model obtained from optimality considerations, and …

Mental effort is an elementary notion in our folk psychology and a familiar fixture in everyday
introspective experience. However, as an object of scientific study, mental effort has …

We present theory and research on effort mobilization that is relevant for understanding the
role of affect in cognitive control. We posit that cognitive control and effort are closely related …

According to prominent models in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and economics,
effort (be it physical or mental) is costly: when given a choice, humans and non-human …

A spate of recent work demonstrates that humans seek to avoid the expenditure of cognitive
effort, much like physical effort or economic resources. Less is clear, however, about the …

An increasing number of cognitive, neurobiological, and computational models have been
proposed in the last decade, seeking to explain how humans allocate physical or cognitive …

While psychological, economic, and neuroscientific accounts of behavior broadly maintain
that people minimize expenditure of cognitive effort, empirical work reveals how reward …