2182 M Mental Efficiency
Name-Match, involves stimulus encoding, comparison
of the semantic features of the stimulus, a binary deci-
sion, and response selection. Name-Match RT is signif-
icantly longer than Physical-Match RT. Significant
differences have also been found between subjects of
high and low verbal ability, and RT in a modified
version of the Posner paradigm has been found to
significantly correlate (negatively) with intelligence.
Inspection Time. Although research on inspection
time (IT) has been traced to James McKeen Cattell in
the 1880s, contemporary interest in IT stems from the
work of Vickers, Nettelbeck and their colleagues (e.g.,
Vickers et al. 1972). IT, the only index of mental speed
that does not involve either motor (output) compo-
nents or executive cognitive processes (meta-pro-
cesses), is held to tap individual differences in the
speed of apprehension, the quickness of the brain to
react to external stimuli prior to any conscious
thought. Meta-analysis results suggest that IT is corre-
lated at approximately .54.
In sum, many different ECTs, ostensibly tapping
different stages of processing (such as encoding, STM
scanning, and LTM retrieval) have been used to inves-
tigate the relationship between RT and intelligence.
Each of the ECTs discussed has been found to have
modest, but reliable (negative) correlations with intel-
ligence, typically in the range of .30 to .50. The
correlation between these ECTs and intelligence may,
in fact, be somewhat higher after correction for the
attenuating effects of restriction of range and measure-
ment error. Multiple correlations between intelligence
and various measures of RT are approximately .60.
Jensen (2006) convincingly argued that further
advances in mental chronometry will depend in large
part upon standardization of chronometric apparatus
and testing procedures to eliminate the potentially
confounding effects of method variance.
Cross-References
Human Cognition and Learning
Human Cognitive Architecture
Intelligence, Learning and Neural Plasticity
Memory Persistence
Working Memory
References
Hick, W. (1952). On the rate of gain of information. The Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4, 1126.
Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor. Westport: Praeger.
Jensen, A. R. (2006). Clocking the mind: Mental chronometry and
individual differences. Oxford: Elsevier.
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York: Meredith.
Posner, M. I. (1978). Chronometric explorations of mind. Hillsdale:
Erlbaum.
Sternberg, S. (1966). High speed scanning in human memory. Sci-
ence, 153, 652654.
Vickers, D., Nettelbeck, T., & Willson, R. J. (1972). Perceptual indices
of performance: The measurement of inspection time and
noise in the visual system. Perception, 1, 263295.
Mental Efficiency
Cognitive Efficiency
Mental Effort
PAUL A. KIRSCHNER1, FEMKE KIRSCHNER2
1
Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies, Open
University of the Netherlands, Heerlen,
The Netherlands
2
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University
Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Synonyms
Cognitive efficiency; Cognitive load; Mental load
Definition
The number of non-automatic elaborations applied to
a unit of material to be learned (Salomon 1984, p. 648).
Theoretical Background
What Mental Effort Is
Mental effort was first used as a concept to help deter-
mine how hard a person tries to actively process
presented information. It was seen as a combination
of perceived demand characteristics, perceived self-effi-
cacy, and level/depth of information processing such
that the first two influence the last which determines
the amount of invested mental effort. Perceived demand
characteristics depend upon the degree to which

a source (e.g., a stimulus, task, context) that is being
attended to poses demands on oness processing,
because information has to be extracted, discriminated
among, remembered, and elaborated upon (Salomon
1984). Research has shown that if the source is seen by
a person as being complex (e.g., if a person is
a complete novice) and/or if the learner is told that
the content of the presented material will be tested,
then the perceived demand will be high. If a person
perceived the source as being simple (e.g., he/she is
more of an expert in the area) and/or is told just to
enjoy the materials, then the perceived demand will be
low. Perceived self-efficacy (Bandura 1982) relates to
how efficacious a person is; the extent that one believes
that he/she is capable of performing in a specific man-
ner to attain specific goals. According to Bandura, the
more efficacious learners perceive themselves to be, the
more likely they are to invest sustained effort to carry
out a task. In this respect it is related to persistence and
motivation (F. Kirschner et al. 2011). Finally, depth of
processing (Craik and Lockhart 1972) relates to the
degree to which a person encodes/recodes a source.
The idea is that the more one elaborates meaning
with already experienced associations, images, and
stories, the more likely one is to remember something.
To this end, encoding/recoding of studied materials for
semantic meaning is seen as deeper processing and
requires more mental elaborations than encoding/
recoding for orthographic features. Put together, the
amount of invested mental effort was defined by Salo-
mon as the number of non-automatic elaborations
applied to a unit of material (Salomon 1984, p. 648)
that a person invests which is determined by her/his
feelings of self-efficacy, how the task is perceived which,
in turn, determines how deeply the information will be
processed. In this way remembering simple factual
information is considered to require little mental effort
while inferential learning requires more mental effort.
Furthermore, in Salomons terms, learning from easy
media such as when watching television requires little
mental effort leading to more surface level learning
while learning from tough media such as learning
from reading books is seen as requiring more mental
effort, with a concomitant increase in deeper learning.
From Mental Effort to Cognitive Load
As stated, mental effort was based upon cognitive,
perceptual, and volitional factors. A term that has
Mental Effort M 2183
supplanted mental effort though often used inter-
changeably with it is cognitive load (P. Kirschner 2002;
Sweller 1988; see also Cognitive Load Theory in this
Encyclopedia). Cognitive load is based upon human
cognitive architecture which consists of a severely lim-
ited working memory with partly independent
processing units for visual/spatial and auditory/verbal
information, which interacts with a comparatively
unlimited long-term memory. Paas et al. (2003) see,
in this respect, mental effort as the aspect of cognitive
load that refers to the cognitive capacity that is actually
allocated to accommodate the demands imposed by the
task; thus, it can be considered to reflect the
actual cognitive load (p. 64). Cognitive load theory
distinguishes between three types of cognitive load,
dependent on the type of processing causing it, namely
intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load
which are additive in that, if learning is to occur, the
total load of the three together cannot exceed the work-
ing memory resources available.
How Mental Effort Is Measured
To measure mental effort, a 9-point symmetrical cate-
M
gory scale is often used (Paas and Van Merrienboer
1993). This scale is a subjective, indirect measure of
cognitive load that asks learners to report the amount
of mental effort that they invested in understanding
learning materials ranging from very, very, very little
effort to very, very, very much effort.
What This Means
Knowing the mental effort that can and is invested
when attending to a source is important in three
ways. First, from the classical definition of mental effort
(Salomon 1984) it can be used to mediate learning. By
affecting the learners perceived self-efficacy and/or by
the learners perception of the task characteristics, both
depth of processing and amount of invested mental
effort can be positively influenced.
Second, from the cognitive load perspective, it can
be used to help design and develop better instruction.
Instructional designs which increase extraneous load
and which do not help and/or even hamper learning
should be avoided while designs which reduce extrane-
ous load (with or without a concomitant increase in
germane load) should be embraced. Also, instructional
designs that result in unused working memory capacity
due to low extraneous load can be further improved by
2184 M Mental Effort
encouraging learners to engage in conscious cognitive
processing directly relevant to learning. The greater the
proportion of germane cognitive load created by the
instructional design, the greater the potential for
learning.
Finally, mental effort can be used to determine the
instructional efficiency of learning materials which is
useful for either comparing instructional designs or
researching them. The combination of mental effort
and performance allows the determination of instruc-
tional efficiency in that high-task performance associ-
ated with low effort is considered high instructional
efficiency, whereas low-task performance with high
effort is considered low-instructional efficiency (Paas
and Van Merrienboer 1993; Van Gog and Paas 2008).
Important Scientific Research and
Open Questions
Group Mental Effort
Although, contemporary thinking about learning
both initial and lifelong has gravitated from individ-
ual learning toward learning in collaborative environ-
ments or situations, research in which group instead of
individual mental effort is the focus of attention has
not yet received much attention. Recently, group or
collaborative learning has become recognized as an
alternative way of overcoming individual WM limita-
tions (F. Kirschner et al. 2009), in the sense that groups
of collaborative learners can be considered as informa-
tion-processing systems (Hinsz et al. 1997), consisting
of multiple limited WMs which can create a collective
working space. At this point in time it is not clear
whether the same methodology used for determining
mental effort in individuals can be reliably used for
determining group mental effort.
Mental Effort During Task
Performance
Mental effort measurements are normally collected
during or after the learning phase and when related to
the performance scores, they can provide an indica-
tion of the type of load imposed on the learner, the
quality of the learning outcomes, and the quality of
different instructional conditions (Paas and Van
Merrienboer 1993; Van Gog and Paas 2008). In future
studies it would be interesting to investigate how the
measurement of mental effort before performing the
task relates to the conventional measures taken dur-
ing or after performing the task. Recently, this pre-
mental effort rating has been used as an indicator of
a learners confidence in completing a task success-
fully instead of one of the more traditional measure-
ments of self- or group-efficacy (F. Kirschner et al.
2011).
Cross-References
AIME (Amount of Invested Mental Effort)
Capacity Limitations of Memory and Learning
Cognitive Load Measurement
Cognitive Load Theory
Cognitive Tasks and Learning
Schema Development
Self-Efficacy and Learning
Short-Term Memory
References
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. The
American Psychologist, 37, 122147.
Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, P. (1972). Levels of processing:
A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 11, 671684.
Hinsz, V. B., Tindale, R. S., & Vollrath, D. A. (1997). The emerging
conceptualization of groups as information processors. Psycho-
logical Bulletin, 121, 4364.
Kirschner, P. A. (2002). Cognitive load theory: Implications of cog-
nitive load theory on the design of learning. Learning and
Instruction, 12(1), 110.
Kirschner, F., Paas, F., & Kirschner, P. A. (2009). A cognitive-load
approach to collaborative learning: United brains for complex
tasks. Educational Psychology Review, 21, 3142.
Kirschner, F., Paas, F., & Kirschner, P. A. (2011). Superiority of
collaborative learning with complex tasks: A research note on
an alternative affective explanation. Computers in Human Behav-
ior, 27(1), 5357.
Paas, F. G. W. C., & van Merrienboer, J. J. G. (1993). The efficiency of
instructional conditions: An approach to combine mental effort
and performance measures. Human Factors, 35, 737743.
Paas, F., Tuovinen, J. E., Tabbers, H., & van Gerven, P. (2003).
Cognitive load measurement as a means to advance cognitive
load theory. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 6371.
Salomon, G. (1984). Television is easy and print is tough: The
differential investment of mental effort in learning as a function
of perceptions and attributions. Journal of Educational Psychol-
ogy, 76(647), 658.
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on
learning. Cognitive Science, 12, 257285.
Van Gog, T., & Paas, F. (2008). Instructional efficiency: Revisiting the
original construct in educational research. Educational Psycholo-
gist, 43, 1626.