2023/08/28 by Julian Matthews, M. Andrea Pisauro, Mindaugas Jurgelis +4 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Medicine · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Sports Performance and Training #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Behavioral Health and Interventions
paper · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105603
openalex publication_date 2023/08/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The willingness to exert effort for reward is essential but comes at the cost of fatigue. Theories suggest fatigue increases after both physical and cognitive exertion, subsequently reducing the motivation to exert effort. Yet a mechanistic understanding of how this happens on a moment-to-moment basis, and whether mechanisms are common to both mental and physical effort, is lacking. In two studies, participants reported momentary (trial-by-trial) ratings of fatigue during an effort-based decision-making task requiring either physical (grip-force) or cognitive (mental arithmetic) effort. Using a novel computational model, we show that fatigue fluctuates from trial-to-trial as a function of exerted effort and predicts subsequent choices. This mechanism was shared across the domains. Selective to the cognitive domain, committing errors also induced momentary increases in feelings of fatigue. These findings provide insight into the computations underlying the influence of effortful exertion on fatigue and motivation, in both physical and cognitive domains.