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Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort

Pursuing a precise, focused train of thought requires cognitive effort. Even more effort is necessary when more alternatives need to be considered or when the imagined situation becomes more complex. Cognitive resources available to us limit the cognitive effort we can spend. In line with previous w...

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Autor principal: Butz, Martin V.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9280204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35846607
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867328
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author Butz, Martin V.
author_facet Butz, Martin V.
author_sort Butz, Martin V.
collection PubMed
description Pursuing a precise, focused train of thought requires cognitive effort. Even more effort is necessary when more alternatives need to be considered or when the imagined situation becomes more complex. Cognitive resources available to us limit the cognitive effort we can spend. In line with previous work, an information-theoretic, Bayesian brain approach to cognitive effort is pursued: to solve tasks in our environment, our brain needs to invest information, that is, negative entropy, to impose structure, or focus, away from a uniform structure or other task-incompatible, latent structures. To get a more complete formalization of cognitive effort, a resourceful event-predictive inference model (REPI) is introduced, which offers computational and algorithmic explanations about the latent structure of our generative models, the active inference dynamics that unfold within, and the cognitive effort required to steer the dynamics—to, for example, purposefully process sensory signals, decide on responses, and invoke their execution. REPI suggests that we invest cognitive resources to infer preparatory priors, activate responses, and anticipate action consequences. Due to our limited resources, though, the inference dynamics are prone to task-irrelevant distractions. For example, the task-irrelevant side of the imperative stimulus causes the Simon effect and, due to similar reasons, we fail to optimally switch between tasks. An actual model implementation simulates such task interactions and offers first estimates of the involved cognitive effort. The approach may be further studied and promises to offer deeper explanations about why we get quickly exhausted from multitasking, how we are influenced by irrelevant stimulus modalities, why we exhibit magnitude interference, and, during social interactions, why we often fail to take the perspective of others into account.
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spelling pubmed-92802042022-07-15 Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort Butz, Martin V. Front Psychol Psychology Pursuing a precise, focused train of thought requires cognitive effort. Even more effort is necessary when more alternatives need to be considered or when the imagined situation becomes more complex. Cognitive resources available to us limit the cognitive effort we can spend. In line with previous work, an information-theoretic, Bayesian brain approach to cognitive effort is pursued: to solve tasks in our environment, our brain needs to invest information, that is, negative entropy, to impose structure, or focus, away from a uniform structure or other task-incompatible, latent structures. To get a more complete formalization of cognitive effort, a resourceful event-predictive inference model (REPI) is introduced, which offers computational and algorithmic explanations about the latent structure of our generative models, the active inference dynamics that unfold within, and the cognitive effort required to steer the dynamics—to, for example, purposefully process sensory signals, decide on responses, and invoke their execution. REPI suggests that we invest cognitive resources to infer preparatory priors, activate responses, and anticipate action consequences. Due to our limited resources, though, the inference dynamics are prone to task-irrelevant distractions. For example, the task-irrelevant side of the imperative stimulus causes the Simon effect and, due to similar reasons, we fail to optimally switch between tasks. An actual model implementation simulates such task interactions and offers first estimates of the involved cognitive effort. The approach may be further studied and promises to offer deeper explanations about why we get quickly exhausted from multitasking, how we are influenced by irrelevant stimulus modalities, why we exhibit magnitude interference, and, during social interactions, why we often fail to take the perspective of others into account. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9280204/ /pubmed/35846607 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867328 Text en Copyright © 2022 Butz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Butz, Martin V.
Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title_full Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title_fullStr Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title_full_unstemmed Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title_short Resourceful Event-Predictive Inference: The Nature of Cognitive Effort
title_sort resourceful event-predictive inference: the nature of cognitive effort
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9280204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35846607
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867328
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