Ego depletion has become a popular and influential theory to explain one of humanity’s biggest limitations. Up until recently, it was thought that cognitive control is fueled by a resource, where...Show moreEgo depletion has become a popular and influential theory to explain one of humanity’s biggest limitations. Up until recently, it was thought that cognitive control is fueled by a resource, where continuous expenditure results in ego depletion, but several accounts point out that this resource has not been found or defined. Furthermore, meta-analyses of studies in favor of the resource model have shown potential publication bias, casting doubt on the existence of the resource or ego depletion in its entirety. The goal for this study was to find evidence that re-framing the mechanisms behind ego depletion using the Metacontrol State Model could explain and predict ego depletion effects more efficiently. 59 participants were repeatedly exposed to a Numerical Counting Stroop Task to trigger ego depletion followed by a geometrical Global-Local Task over six blocks. The Global-Local Task was chosen as the dependent variable, as evidence had been found that could be generalized to assume that global-local processing modes and the Metacontrol State Model may have mechanistic overlap. It was hypothesized that RTs and PEs in local trials would increase, and RTs and PEs in global trials would decrease over time in the experimental group. The findings of this study, however, do comply with our hypothesis, instead favoring the null hypothesis. Two ways to interpret our findings are highlighted. Strengths and limitations, including potential online sampling effects, and several empirically novel modifications to our tasks, are discussed. The effects of ego depletion on performance in the GLT were not observed.Show less
