title: Receipt of reward leads to altered estimation of effort.
abstract: Effort and reward jointly shape many human decisions. Errors in predicting the required effort needed for a task can lead to suboptimal behavior. Here, we show that effort estimations can be biased when retrospectively reestimated following receipt of a rewarding outcome. These biases depend on the contingency between reward and task difficulty and are stronger for highly contingent rewards. Strikingly, the observed pattern accords with predictions from Bayesian cue integration, indicating humans deploy an adaptive and rational strategy to deal with inconsistencies between the efforts they expend and the ensuing rewards.
authors.affiliation: Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany; arezoo.pooresmaeili@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Arezoo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pooresmaeili
authors.affiliation: Freie Schule Charlottenburg, 14052 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Aurel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wannig
authors.affiliation: Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany; Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom; Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
mesh_terms: D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
keywords: Bayesian; cue integration; effort; retrospective; reward