A novel approach to analysing cognitive and physical effort in a unified motor task

PsyArXiv

Authors
Affiliations

Jonathan Wientges

Sport Psychology Lab, Department of Sport Science, University of Konstanz, Germany
Development and Education in Early Childhood, Empirical Educational Research, University of Konstanz, Germany
Thurgau University of Teacher Education, Switzerland

Maik Bieleke

Sport Psychology Lab, Department of Sport Science, University of Konstanz, Germany

Wanja Wolff

Dynamics Human Performance Regulation Lab, Faculty of Psychology & Human Movement Science, University of Hamburg, Germany

Ursula Fischer

Institute for Educational Support for Behaviour, Social-Emotional, and Psychomotor Development (IVE), University of Teacher Education in Special Needs, Switzerland

Julia Schüler

Sport Psychology Lab, Department of of Sport Science, University of Konstanz, Germany

Published

2025

Doi
Abstract

Many everyday tasks and sports activities require the simultaneous engagement of cognitive and physical effort. While cognitive and physical effort have been extensively studied independently, their concurrent interplay remains underexplored due to a lack of suitable task paradigms. To address this gap, we introduce a novel pegboard system designed to independently and simultaneously manipulate cognitive and physical effort within one motor task. Participants place pegs into holes under varying cognitive demand (e.g., memorizing and switching light patterns indicating target holes, with task demands modulated by the probability of pattern changes) and physical demands (e.g., overcoming resistance, with task demands modulated by hole distances or required force). Across two within-subject studies (n = 20, n = 50), we examined how systematically varying task demands in the pegboard system influence perceived effort. Attesting to its validity, increasing task demands elicited domain-specific increases in perceived effort. Participants rated more cognitively demanding tasks as more cognitively effortful and more physically demanding tasks as more physically effortful, with graded increases in perceived effort corresponding to demand levels. These findings align with contemporary models of effort and demonstrate the suitability of the pegboard system for studying cognitive and physical effort concurrently in a unified motor task. This paves the way for future research on the interplay between cognitive and physical effort, addressing theoretical gaps and offering practical applications in sports, healthcare, and occupational settings.

Keywords

cognitive effort, physical effort, perception of effort, pegboard system, motor task