Basic Mechanisms in the Control of Cognition

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The idea that we attempt to minimize effort features prominently in explanations of a wide variety of cognitive phenomena (e.g., decision-making, attentional orienting, memory) and is considered a basic principle of human cognition. Thus, understanding how individuals' judge the effort associated with a cognitive act would represent a fundamental building block in understanding human cognition. The proposed research will provide novel insight into this problem. We will develop an innovative theoretical framework wherein judgments of effort are viewed as inferences based on available cues (e.g., stimulus orientation). These inferences can be characterized as either more belief-based (i.e., derived from a priori theories and intuitions about how the mind works) or more experience-based (i.e., derived from online processing). Furthermore, within this framework, these inferences can drive the strategic regulation of cognition (i.e., cognitive control). A series of experiments are proposed that will develop this theoretical framework through two broad objectives. The first will examine the information used by individuals in making judgments of effort and the factors that modulate the use of this information. In particular, we will focus on how the demands placed on the cognitive control system (i.e., the system responsible for the management of low-level processes) and time (i.e., how long it takes to complete a cognitive act) are used by individuals in making judgments of effort (Objective 1). The second objective will investigate how judgments of cognitive effort are translated into effort-related control functions (Objective 2). Here we will focus on the decision to offload cognition (i.e., replace internal/cognitive processing with some physical action) or to mind wander (i.e., disengage attention from a task). The new knowledge gained from this research will provide a deeper understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying the control of cognition. This research will also have important real-world implications. For example, as our cognitive lives become increasingly integrated with cognitive technologies, our understanding of how we use these aids to offload cognition will become increasingly important. In addition to the transformative gains in knowledge, the proposed experiments will provide an excellent training opportunity for a large number of trainees to learn a broad range of skills relevant to research in the natural sciences. This research will have numerous short and long-term benefits for Canada, including (1) advancing our basic understanding of cognitive control, (2) developing trainees who can impact our social and economic lives through careers in research and beyond (e.g., user-experience design), and (3) developing knowledge that will be relevant to a number of applied domains (i.e., human-technology interaction, education).