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Mental Effort Cost Learning is Retrospective
Asako Mitsuto1,2,3,4,5,6, Rei Akaishi7, Keiichi Onoda5,8
1Department of Psychiatry, Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|November 24, 2025
Summary
People learn mental effort costs retrospectively, not through temporal-difference learning. Decisions are updated after effort completion, challenging existing models of cognitive effort learning.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroeconomics
Background:
- Understanding avoidance of mental effort is key to understanding decision-making.
- Previous research suggests temporal-difference (TD) learning may underlie effort cost evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the learning mechanisms of mental effort costs.
- To determine if mental effort cost learning aligns with TD learning or other models.
Main Methods:
- Model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed.
- Analysis focused on cost prediction errors (CPEs) and brain activity in relevant regions.
Main Results:
- No correlation was found between CPEs and activity in the dorsomedial frontal cortex/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dmFC/dACC) or striatum at the cue stage.
- CPEs correlated with dmFC/dACC (positively) and caudate (negatively) activity upon effort completion.
- Activity patterns at effort completion predicted subsequent choices.
Conclusions:
- Mental effort cost learning is a retrospective process, updated at effort completion.
- Decision policies are updated based on prediction errors between experienced and expected effort.
- Adaptive learning of mental effort costs does not follow canonical TD learning principles.
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