Cognitive effort and decision-making: integrating computational, behavioral, and psychophysiological approaches

日常经历是由决定决定的，从决定午餐吃什么到做出职业选择，但并不是所有的决定都是以同样的方式做出的：有些决定是努力做出的，速度很慢，而另一些决定更容易，做出得更快。这项拟议的研究旨在阐明，当努力的过程被部署为回报最大化的服务时。这一目标将通过解决三个基本问题来实现：1)人们如何计算和平衡认知努力的相对成本和收益；2)这些成本和收益的心理生理标志是什么，这些信号如何影响认知努力的支出，如行为所证明的；以及3)认知能力的个体差异如何影响这种成本-收益计算？

Everyday experiences are defined by decisions, from deciding what to eat for lunch to making career choices, but not all of our decisions come about the same way: some decisions are made with effort and are slow, while other decisions are easier and made quickly. The proposed research aims to elucidate when effortful processes are deployed the service of maximizing rewards. This aim will be met by addressing three fundamental questions: 1) how do people calculate and balance the relative costs and benefits of cognitive effort, 2) what are the psychophysiological markers of these costs and benefits and how do these signals influence the expenditure of cognitive effort as evidenced by behavior, and 3) how do individual differences in cognitive ability influence this cost-benefit calculus?