The effect of effort on responses to binary cues

Motivation - To address the question how the effort required to obtain task relevant information and the sensitivity of a binary cueing system affect responses to cues in a binary categorization task that is aided by a binary cueing system. Research approach - In a simulated quality control task, participants had to decide whether to discard an item or approve it based on the configuration of light and darker squares in it. In half the experimental blocks they could use cues from a binary cueing system. The experimental conditions differed in the contrast between the light and darker squares in the items and in the sensitivity of the cueing system. At the end of each experimental block participants completed the NASA-TLX questionnaire to assess their perceived workload. Findings - The results showed that lower contrast led to higher perceived effort. However, compliance with the cues and reliance on them were not stronger among participants for whom the task required more effort. In addition, the use of binary cues reduced perceived workload only with the more sensitive binary cueing system. Take away message - The results may suggest that when not overloaded people may prefer to be involved in decisions instead of letting them be strongly guided by an automated device.