Preferences for seeking effort or reward information bias the willingness to work

Journal article

Deadlines fundamentally shape the motivation for effort. Research examining effort-based choices findshigh effort is an avoided cost. However, this work overlooks the fact that effort can be valuable when itmakes progress on long-term goals before deadlines. We test a new framework where motivationdepends on deadline pressure (work remaining / time remaining). Across three studies we usecomputational modelling on novel tasks examining effort-based decisions when effort makes progresson goals with deadlines. In support of hypotheses, deadline pressure significantly impacts decisionmaking, shifting people from avoiding effort, to seeking and valuing it. Using ultra-high-field fMRI, weshow that functionally connected putamen and midcingulate cortex (MCC) sub-regions process andupdate estimates of deadline pressure, with distinct anterior cingulate and putamen sub-regionsprocessing the costs or added value of effort. We show the neurocomputational mechanisms for howdeadline pressure shapes motivation, and that keep us ‘on track’ for our goals

Authors: Müller, T; Husain, M; Apps, MAJ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 19486-19486
• Article number: 19486
• Publication date: 2022-11-14
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-21917-7
• EISSN: 2045-2322
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• Language: English
• Keywords: Work (physics); Information retrieval; Data science; Computer science; Engineering; Psychology; Information seeking