Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Cognitivism01:17

Cognitivism

1.5K
Cognitive psychology emerged as a significant field in the mid-20th century. It focused on understanding humans' internal mental processes. This approach emphasizes how people perceive, remember, think, and solve problems—elements critical to human cognition.
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process...
1.5K
Reason and Intuition01:37

Reason and Intuition

6.5K
The human brain processes information for decision-making using one of two routes: an intuitive system and a rational system (Epstein, 1994; popularized by Kahneman, 2011 as System 1 and System 2, respectively). The intuitive system is quick, impulsive, and operates with minimal effort, relying on emotions or habits to provide cues for what to do next, while the rational system is logical, analytical, deliberate, and methodical. Research in neuropsychology suggests that the...
6.5K
Cognitive Learning01:21

Cognitive Learning

461
Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
461
Lazarus's Cognitive Appraisal Theory01:20

Lazarus's Cognitive Appraisal Theory

349
Cognitive psychologist Richard Lazarus proposed the cognitive-mediational theory of emotions, which emphasizes how individuals' assessments of stressors significantly affect their experience of stress. According to Lazarus, the stress response is determined by a two-step appraisal process: primary appraisal and secondary appraisal. These cognitive appraisals help individuals evaluate the potential impact of a stressor and determine the adequacy of their coping resources.
Primary Appraisal:...
349
Metacognition01:26

Metacognition

245
Metacognition is a conscious process where individuals are aware of their cognitive and executive processes, such as planning before solving a problem or self-monitoring during reading. For instance, a writer may need help with composing a piece. The situation involves a writer who is working on a piece of writing, but while doing so, they realize that something is missing. They notice that their characters lack depth or details. This realization occurs because the writer is reflecting on their...
245
Introduction to Cognitive Psychology01:20

Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

557
Cognitive psychology is the field of psychology dedicated to examining how people think. It attempts to explain how and why we think the way we do by studying the interactions among human thinking, emotion, creativity, language, and problem-solving, as well as other cognitive processes. Cognitive psychology studies how information is processed and manipulated in remembering, thinking, and knowing.
This field emerged in the mid-20th century, following a period dominated by behaviorism, which...
557

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Exposure to false cardiac feedback alters pain perception and anticipatory cardiac frequency.

eLife·2026
Same author

Gaze dynamics prior to navigation support hierarchical planning.

PloS one·2026
Same author

Sociodemographic Variability in Pediatric Emergency Decisions by AI.

Pediatrics·2026
Same author

Limb apraxia and active inference in the visuomotor pathways.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2026
Same author

The continuous dynamics of planning and acting in a virtually embodied task.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

False but phonologically plausible linguistic priors induce cross-linguistic auditory illusions and attenuate electrophysiological markers of surprise.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same journal

Prevalence and modulation of rat off-track head scanning on linear tracks: possible implications for representational and dynamic properties of hippocampal place cells.

Neuropsychologia·2026
Same journal

Identifying networks within an fMRI multivariate searchlight analysis.

Neuropsychologia·2026
Same journal

Modulating sentence comprehension in people with aphasia through anodal tDCS: A double-blind randomized cross-over study.

Neuropsychologia·2026
Same journal

Deficient processing of regularity violations during visuospatial neglect: a visual mismatch negativity study.

Neuropsychologia·2026
Same journal

Seeing is believing: mental imagery amplifies moral, emotional, and motivational responding to mentally constructed hypothetical events.

Neuropsychologia·2026
Same journal

From Past Recall to Future Projection: What Does Verb Tense Production Reveal About Mental Time Travel in Alzheimer's disease?

Neuropsychologia·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 2, 2025

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
05:48

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

Published on: June 12, 2020

5.8K

Cognitive effort and active inference.

Thomas Parr1, Emma Holmes1, Karl J Friston1

  • 1Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, UK.

Neuropsychologia
|April 20, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study formalizes cognitive effort using active inference, modeling mental effort during a Stroop task. It demonstrates that cognitive effort parameters can be recovered from simulated performance data.

Keywords:
Active inferenceCognitive effortCovert attentionMental effortStroop effectVariational

More Related Videos

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

6.3K
Modulating Cognition Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Cerebellum
11:47

Modulating Cognition Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Cerebellum

Published on: February 15, 2015

28.8K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Aug 2, 2025

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
05:48

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

Published on: June 12, 2020

5.8K
Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

6.3K
Modulating Cognition Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Cerebellum
11:47

Modulating Cognition Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Cerebellum

Published on: February 15, 2015

28.8K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Computational Psychiatry

Background:

  • Cognitive control and executive functions are central to cognitive neuroscience.
  • Understanding cognitive or mental effort is crucial for explaining task performance.
  • Active inference provides a formal framework for understanding brain function.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To formalize the concept of cognitive effort within the active inference framework.
  • To model mental effort during a challenging cognitive task (Stroop task).
  • To investigate covert mental actions and their role in effortful cognition.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Stroop task to assess impulse inhibition and mental effort.
  • Developed a computational model based on active inference principles.
  • Generated multimodal simulated data (choice, reaction time, electrophysiology).
  • Analyzed the influence of cognitive effort parameters on simulated responses.

Main Results:

  • Demonstrated that cognitive effort can be conceptualized as overcoming prior beliefs through mental action.
  • Showed that key parameters determining cognitive effort can be recovered from simulated performance data.
  • The model successfully generated realistic multimodal data mimicking human performance.

Conclusions:

  • Active inference offers a viable framework for understanding and modeling cognitive effort.
  • The study provides a computational account of mental effort in executive function.
  • This approach can potentially be used to infer cognitive states from behavioral and neural data.