Not so smart? "Smart" drugs increase the level but decrease the quality of cognitive effort.


Journal

Science advances
ISSN: 2375-2548
Titre abrégé: Sci Adv
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101653440

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
16 06 2023
Historique:
medline: 16 6 2023
pubmed: 14 6 2023
entrez: 14 6 2023
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

The efficacy of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers in everyday complex tasks remains to be established. Using the knapsack optimization problem as a stylized representation of difficulty in tasks encountered in daily life, we discover that methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil cause knapsack value attained in the task to diminish significantly compared to placebo, even if the chance of finding the optimal solution (~50%) is not reduced significantly. Effort (decision time and number of steps taken to find a solution) increases significantly, but productivity (quality of effort) decreases significantly. At the same time, productivity differences across participants decrease, even reverse, to the extent that above-average performers end up below average and vice versa. The latter can be attributed to increased randomness of solution strategies. Our findings suggest that "smart drugs" increase motivation, but a reduction in quality of effort, crucial to solve complex problems, annuls this effect.

Identifiants

pubmed: 37315143
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.add4165
pmc: PMC10266726
doi:

Substances chimiques

Methylphenidate 207ZZ9QZ49
Modafinil R3UK8X3U3D

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Pagination

eadd4165

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Auteurs

Elizabeth Bowman (E)

Centre for Brain, Mind, and Markets, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

David Coghill (D)

Departments of Paediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Carsten Murawski (C)

Centre for Brain, Mind, and Markets, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Peter Bossaerts (P)

Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DD, UK.

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Classifications MeSH