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Lehrstuhl für Psychologie III

Rouven Aust M.Sc.

M.Sc. Rouven Aust

PhD student

Lehrstuhl für Psychologie III

Röntgenring 11

97070 Würzburg

Deutschland

Gebäude: Hörsaalgebäude

Raum: H 9

Telefon: +49 931 31-87797

E-Mail: rouven.aust@uni-wuerzburg.de

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2025[ to top ]

Aust, R., Weis, P. P., & Kunde, W. (2025). Physical effort and task errors influence the choice for cognitive offloading. Psychological Research, 89(5), 154. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02186-1
- [ Abstract ]
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Minimizing effort is a principle widely accepted to govern human behavior. We revisited this principle in an extended rotation paradigm. Participants freely chose to solve an object comparison task by either mental or manual rotation of one of two simultaneously presented objects. We manipulated the required force of manual rotation, stimulus complexity, as well as the angular mismatch between both objects, while carefully eliminating confounds of physical effort with time. Our study revealed that both physical and mental effort affect strategy choice. Additionally, strategy choice in a certain trial was influenced by error commissions in the previous trial. These error-induced strategy switches were asymmetric: participants were more inclined to switch following mental than manual rotation errors. Our results suggest that human reactions to error commission when using external tools may differ in a qualitative manner from reactions to error commission during mental endeavors. Theoretical implications are discussed especially in the context of the entanglement of physical effort and time.

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