Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task

Abstract

In psychology research studies, the goals of the experimenter and the goals of the participants often do not align. Researchers are interested in having participants who take the experimental task seriously, whereas participants are interested in earning their incentive (e.g., money or course credit) as quickly as possible. Creating experimental methods that are pleasant for participants and that reward them for effortful and accurate data generation, while not compromising the scientific integrity of the experiment, would benefit both experimenters and participants alike. Here, we explored a gamelike system of points and sound effects that rewarded participants for fast and accurate responses. We measured participant engagement at both cognitive and perceptual levels and found that the point system (which invoked subtle, anonymous social competition between participants) led to positive intrinsic motivation, while the sound effects (which were pleasant and arousing) led to attentional capture for rewarded colors. In a visual search task, points were awarded after each trial for fast and accurate responses, accompanied by short, pleasant sound effects. We adapted a paradigm from Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25):10367-10371, 2011b), in which participants completed a training phase during which red and green targets were probabilistically associated with reward (a point bonus multiplier). During a test phase, no points or sounds were delivered, color was irrelevant to the task, and previously rewarded targets were sometimes presented as distractors. Significantly longer response times on trials in which previously rewarded colors were present demonstrated attentional capture, and positive responses to a five-question intrinsic-motivation scale demonstrated participant engagement.

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“…Psychologists have a history of using games and game-like interfaces to make experiments more palatable to participants (e.g., Anguera et al, 2013;Boot et al, 2010;Mané & Donchin, 1989;Miranda & Palmer, 2014), and mobile devices offer an exciting new means to crowd source an experiment in a game-like form.…”

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“…In our task, the participant's points score was displayed at the bottom of the screen throughout (see Figure 2C). The scoring system was very similar to that used in our previous study (Lumsden, Skinner, et al, 2016), which in turn was based on that used by (Miranda & Palmer, 2014). The scoring system also incorporates findings of (Guitart-Masip et al, 2012) who found that subjects were much more successful in learning active (go) choices when rewarded for them, and passive choices (stop) when punished.…”

“…The following questions were based on those used in previous studies (Hawkins et al, 2013;Lumsden, Skinner, et al, 2016;Miranda & Palmer, 2014), and were presented in a random order: (1)…”

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“…Miranda and Palmer (2014). The total score, high score, and streak counter encouraged implicit social competition between participants.…”

“…Despite the fact that color was irrelevant to the task, the visual system prioritized the color previously associated with reward and thus allocated attention to it, causing slower RTs on those trials. Miranda and Palmer (2014) adapted the Anderson, et al (2011) paradigm and turned it into a visual search "game." During the training phase of the experiment, participants were awarded points on each trial depending on their performance.…”