Nanne Kukkonen
About
The stock tongue-in-cheek answer to "why do you want to study psychology" is "I want to figure out what's wrong with me". Thinking back, I remember wanting to study the ways in which people are similar. The pursuit of understanding the commonalities across people led me to move from Finland to Manchester to study psychology.
While studying toward a BSc in Psychology at the University of Manchester, my attention was captured by neuroimaging research in particular; within the past few decades it has become possible to image the brain with incredible level of detail, and to link mental functions to neural structures. I subsequently obtained an MSc in Neuroimaging (for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience) and went on to carry out research at Ghent University investigating mental effort using behavioral (e.g. task performance), physiological (pupil size), and neuroimaging (functional MRI) methods.
Specifically, my doctoral research focused on how effort valuation turns into exertion of effort. In general, humans tend to exert more effort when it is worth it, that is, when the reward outweighs the behavioral cost. Our research shows that this isn't always the case – dynamic adjustments of effort might only come about when the reward pertains to multiple shots at a task, rather than a one-off attempt. Additionally, our research ranges from pro-environmental effort to the ways in which the brain supports dynamic effort exertion based on current demands and rewards.
Effort research
How does our ability to predict the costs and benefits of effort influence the way we adapt our effort levels? When are people more likely to exert effort for the environment rather than for other outcomes? Click here for a list of articles answering these questions and more.