Costs of Cognitive Effort

In general, people tend to avoid engaging in cognitively effortful activities. This tendency is often exacerbated in older adults despite the hypothesized benefits of cognitively effortful activities in helping to promote cognitive health and well-being in older age. My work is aimed at studying the subjective value that participants place on performing cognitively effortful activities and how this differs across different domains. In parallel, I have studied cognitive effort outside of the lab using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to be able to better characterize the contexts and temporal dynamics that support cognitive effort-based decision making across the adult life span.

Relevant Publications:

Crawford, J.L., Brough, R.E., Eisenstein, S.A., Peelle, J.E., & Braver, T.S. (2024). Generalized encoding of the relative subjective value of cognitive effort in dorsal ACC. Journal of Neuroscience 44(38), 1-14.

Crawford, J.L., English, T. & Braver, T.S. (2023). Cognitive effort-based decision-making across experimental and daily life indices in younger and older adults. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 78(1), 40-50.

Aschenbrenner, A.J. Crawford, J.L., Peelle, J.E., Fagan, A.M., Benzinger, T.L.S., Morris, J.C., Hassenstab, J., & Braver, T.S. (2023). Increased cognitive effort costs in healthy aging and preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease. Psychology and Aging 38(5), 428-442.

Crawford, J.L., Eisenstein, S.A., Peelle, J.E. & Braver, T.S. (2022). Domain-general cognitive motivation: Evidence from economic decision-making – Final Registered Report. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7(1), 23.

Crawford, J.L., English, T., & Braver, T.S. (2022). Incorporating Ecological Momentary Assessment into multimethod investigations of cognitive aging: Promise and practical considerations. Psychology and Aging, 37(1), 84–96.