**Overview** A masters student i psychology at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, Kristoffer Klevjer, BA. are conducting a direct+ replication of Experiment 3 in ["Decision Making and the Avoidance of Cognitive Demand" by Kool, McGuire, Rosen and Botvinick (2010)][1], under the guidance of Dr. Gerit Pfuhl, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology. After, and only after, completing the replication experiment, the participants will undergo other tests, which will in no way interfere with this replication. This will be a part of Kristoffer Klevjer's masters thesis, and will be discussed in detail elsewhere. **Short introduction to the experiment** [Kool et al. (2010)][1] argued that although the *law of less work*, the tendency to choose actions to minimize demands for exertion, or work, was intended for physical effort, it quickly became assumed to apply for cognitive demand as well. And even though this inclusion of cognitive effort have been assumed for a long time, no one had done any systematic experiments trying to test this assumption. Kool et al. (2010) set out to change this, and over 5 experiments, they found evidence in support of this *law of less (mental) work*, a bias of avoidance of cognitive demand. This replication project will attempt to replicate experiment 3 in Kool et al. (2010)'s study. **Experiment 3 in Kool et al. (2010)** In this experiment, participants are asked to solve quite easy cognitive tasks on a computer. They pick one of two colored circles, and solves the subsequent one of two different tasks. The participant are presented with a number from 1 to 9 (with the exception of 5), and are either asked if the number is above or below 5 or if the number is odd or even, and which task is to be solved is determined by the color the number appears in. Unbeknownst to the participant, one of the colored circles will have a repeating task 90% of the time, while the other will only have a repeating task 10% of the time. The act of switching between the two tasks takes more cognitive effort compered to doing the same task multiple times in a row. If there really are an avoidance of cognitive demand, the participants should prefer the low-demand cue more often than the high-demand cue. Something the original authors found supporting evidence for. For a full breakdown of all the factors being looked at, and controlled for, please refer to the [original study][1] **This replication** *Participants* The participants will be recruited on campus and via social media, however measures will be taken to limit the amount of psychology students to max 50%. UiT - The Arctic University of Norway is a broad-spectrum University, and participants will be recruited from a wide range of study programs, for instance from the Faculty of Natural Science and Technology, Business and Administration, Humanities and Art, and Medicine and Health Sciences. In addition, the psychology students will be newly started psychology students, and we have full overview over their course material, so we can limit the possibility that they'll have a greater chance of guessing what the experiment is regarding. All participants will be tested individually, in the manner shown in the procedure video, and will be instructed to avoid talking about the experiment to any fellow students until after they have completed the experiment as well (if applicable). The participants will be given a small non-monetary reward for participating in the replication experiment. *Deviations from the original study* We will as stated be conducting this replication at a Norwegian University, which means all instructions are given in Norwegian. Therefor all documents in Norwegian are the originals being used, but in addition an English translation is added for all of the relevant documents (the English translations has been translated back / verified by a third party, without any knowledge of the project, nor any access to the original instructions in Norwegian, this to ensure that the translations match the original Norwegian instructions). Other than that, every step will be taken to replicate the original study as closely as possible, hopefully as close to an exact replication as possible. *Pre-registration* This replication will be sent in for CREP review, and then subsequently pre-registred. Below is a timeline of the project and an overview of the contents of this page. **Timeline:** *IRB* - Approved: 16. July, 2018, E-phorte 2016/9228-4 *CREP review 1* - Applied: 07. September, 2018 - Approved: 07. September, 2018 *CREP review 2* - Will be applied for after completion of the replication. *Data Collection* - Planning to begin in September, and finish by early October (the pure replication part, a second test session will take place in October/November, unrelated to this replication). *Analysis* - As of now, the analysis is planned to be done together with the (replication)+ part, in November/December, 2018 *Presentation(s)* - Poster presentation at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, spring 2019, together with the (replication)+ part. - Other relevant places might be considered, then again as a part of the rest of the masters thesis by Kristoffer Klevjer. **Content:** Short overview, details in each components individual wiki *Methods and Materials* - *Kool replication UiT - Script English.pdf:* A script of the instructions given to the participants, translated to English. - *Kool replication UiT - Handout instructions Norwegian.pdf:* A small hand-out of the task instructions given to the participants. - *Kool replication UiT - Handout instructions English.pdf:* A small hand-out of the task instructions given to the participants, translated to English. - *Kool replication UiT - Debrief questions Norwegian.pdf:* Debrief questions given to the participants after the experiment. - *Kool replication UiT - Debrief questions English.pdf:* Debrief questions given to the participants after the experiment, translated to English. - *MathLab task files:* A folder containing the relevant information to run the computer experiment. It contains files used in MathLab (with [Psychtoolbox][3]) to run the experiment. These are the same as in the original experiment, with two small changes in the code (please read the information in the wiki in that component). *Ethics approval* - *Kool replication UiT - Consent form.pdf:* The consent form presented to participants prior to the experiment (see the procedure video). This consent form will be presented in English. - *Kool replication UiT - IRB Approval.pdf:* The IRB approval e-mail, approval registered in E-phorte as described in the component's wiki. *Procedure video* - *Kool replication UiT - Procedure video.mp4:* A video showing the procedure of the replication part, beginning with meeting the participant for the first time, up till task (experiment 3 in Kool et al. (2010)) completion. - *Kool replication UiT - Procedure video subtitles.srt"* The experiment are conducted at a Norwegian University, so the instructions in the video are done in Norwegian, therefor we made and added subtitles in English. - *Kool replication UiT - Procedure video participant quick analysis.jpg:* The results from the procedure video participant (see the individual wiki) * One way to view the video is to use [VLC][2]. Download the video and the subtitles file, and start the video, click subtitles and then add the subtitles. However if they are in the same folder, they should be added automatically. *Data and results* - Will be added after data collection are done, and after the analysis are done. *Completion Pledge Document* - Will be added when the replication are done, and everything else is uploaded. [1]: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020198 [2]: www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html [3]: http://psychtoolbox.org