Do "effort tests" really test effort?

Little is known about how much effort to do well most people exert on cognitive testing. Here, we describe an experimental paradigm to manipulate and measure cognitive effort.

After baseline cognitive and performance validity testing (PVT), 38 participants were assigned to a standard (SI) or enhanced (EI) incentive condition. On retesting a week later, EI participants were told that they would receive a financial bonus whose amount depended on how much their retest performance improved over baseline. SI participants were told to do their best and promised a chance-based bonus.

Larger improvements on retesting were assumed to reflect less effort at baseline. After calculating differences from baseline to follow-up, we compared the EI and SI groups using multivariate analysis of variance. We sought to identify predictors of lower cognitive effort at baseline by correlating change z scores with baseline PVT performance and other hypothesized markers of low cognitive effort. As hypothesized, the EI group showed larger improvements, including improvements on more cognitive tests, and were rated as and reported trying harder at retesting than the SI group. Standard PVT measures did not correlate with low baseline effort; however, resting one's head or slouching during cognitive testing signified low baseline cognitive effort.

This study provides preliminary support for an experimental paradigm to manipulate and investigate cognitive effort, which still remains poorly understood. While PVTs can detect feigned cognitive impairment, they lack the sensitivity to detect low cognitive effort in persons who pass conventional PVT cutoffs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).