Toward a Rational and Mechanistic Account of Mental Effort

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  • Amitai Shenhav
    Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912;
  • Sebastian Musslick
    Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
  • Falk Lieder
    Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
  • Wouter Kool
    Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
  • Thomas L. Griffiths
    Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
  • Jonathan D. Cohen
    Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
  • Matthew M. Botvinick
    Google DeepMind, London M1C 4AG, United Kingdom

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<jats:p> 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 limitations in our capacity to exercise cognitive control, it is unclear what gives rise to those limitations and why they result in an experience of control as costly. The presence of these control costs also raises further questions regarding how best to allocate mental effort to minimize those costs and maximize the attendant benefits. This review explores recent advances in computational modeling and empirical research aimed at addressing these questions at the level of psychological process and neural mechanism, examining both the limitations to mental effort exertion and how we manage those limited cognitive resources. We conclude by identifying remaining challenges for theoretical accounts of mental effort as well as possible applications of the available findings to understanding the causes of and potential solutions for apparent failures to exert the mental effort required of us. </jats:p>

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