2026/2027: Is there hypofrontality during running to exhaustion? Do the genders differ? An fNIRS study
Situational awareness - physiological and cognitive factors
Energy drink consumption is a staggering 1/3 of that of bottled water in Norway (Statista.com). These drinks generally contain caffeine, artificial sweeteners (zero calorie drinks) and/or a high concentration of sugar (glucose/sucrose/fructose). Consumers are mainly young adults who may believe that this kind of drink improves their grades. There is mixed support regarding the ability of caffeine and glucose to improve cognitive performance. Less is known about the effect of these substances on cognitive effort. On the one hand, caffeine might be beneficial for those low in intrinsic motivation but might have no impact on effort spent among those high in intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, caffeine may improve cognitive performance but not cognitive effort whereas the opposite might hold for sugar. To investigate this puzzle, we will use the Cognitive Effort Discounting task (Westbrook et al., 2013) which measures concomitantly working memory performance and willingness to spend cognitive effort. The task will be administered after the consumption of different experimenter-designed beverages designed to mimic energy drinks but differing in caffeine and sugar content. Intrinsic motivation is assessed with the Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), and perceived effort is measured with the NASA task load index (Hart & Staveland, 1988)
When we are faced with a situation involving some sort of uncertainty, in which we have to make a decision, we thus have a multitude of factors influencing how we go about it. What are the possible outcomes, and how much do we care about them? How certain do we need to be before deciding? Can we reduce the uncertainty? How do we reduce it? By introspection, relying on things we already know, by thinking it through, or by sampling more external information? Or a combination of all? Do we even notice the factors affecting our felt certainty/uncertainty? In my PhD project I look at tasks measuring information sampling and individual differences in the propensoty to gather more information.
Human rational behavior is shaped by a scissors whose two blades are the structure of task environments and the computational capabilities of the actor”. Research into decision-making and rationality often rely on a dual-process framework, which separate human thinking into two systems. System 1 or intuitive thinking consists of a set of autonomous systems that are automatic, fast, parallel, unconscious and effortless. System 2 or deliberate reasoning is slow, serial, conscious and require effort. Since deliberate reasoning is costly, relying on intuitive processes to save mental effort is a universal phenomenon in humans. Accordingly, there is a trade-off between intuitive and deliberate reasoning. Relying on intuition is in many cases sufficient and adaptive, but can also lead to irrational decisions. Our projects aim to investigate:
a) motivational factors, such as the influence of cognitive style and willingness to expend effort,
b) the effects of environmental factors such as language,
c) the underlying neural mechanisms involved in decision-making,
d) and the influence sub-optimal decision-making has on rationality.