No effect of monetary reward in a visual working memory task

Berg, Ronald van den; Zou, Qijia; Ji, Wei

doi:10.1101/767343

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…While the questionnaire data suggest that subjects in gamified conditions had higher motivation than subjects in the control condition, we did not find any evidence for a difference in memory performance. This null effect on performance is consistent with earlier indications that VWM performance is not sensitive to monetary incentives (van den Berg, Zou, & Ma, 2019; Zhang & Luck, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance

Mystakidou

Berg

2020

Preprint

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5Gamification refers to the introduction of gaming elements such as scores and leaderboards in non-6 gaming contexts. While there is growing evidence that gamification has positive effects on 7 intrinsic motivation and engagement, it is largely unknown whether these effects translate to 8 improved cognitive performance. Here, we examine whether gamification affects performance on 9 a visual working memory (VWM) task. In Experiment 1, we gamified a standard delayed-10 estimation task by introducing scores and a leveling system. On each trial, the subject's estimation 11 error was mapped to a score between −100 and +100 and added to their total score. Subjects started 12 at a set size of 1 and "leveled up" to the next set size each time they had accumulated 1,500 points. 13Post-experiment questionnaire data confirmed that subjects who performed the gamified version 14 of the task were more motivated than control subjects. However, we found no difference in VWM 15 performance between these two groups, nor between below-median and above-median motivated 16 subjects. In Experiment 2, we tested for effects of trial-by-trial manipulations of motivation on 17 VWM performance, by varying the scoring function across trials. Three scoring functions were 18 used, with maxima of 7, 21, and 101 points. At the beginning of each trial, the subject was informed 19 whether the potential reward was "low", "medium", or "high". Post-questionnaire data showed 20 that subjects were more motivated on high-reward trials. However, we found no evidence for a 21 difference in performance between the three reward levels. Our results suggest that gamification 22 increases people's motivation to carry out visual working memory tasks, but it does not necessarily 23 increase their performance. 24 25 26 27 memory capacity; cognitive constraints 28 29There has recently been a surge in research on effects of "gamification", i.e., the use of 31 gaming elements in non-gaming contexts such as learning, education, and marketing (e.g., 32

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance

Mystakidou

Berg

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…On the other hand, recent modeling work theorizes that the total amount of resource dedicated to storing items in working memory is flexible and potentially able to be increased when there is more at stake (van den Berg and Ma, 2018). Prior studies on the effect of motivation on visual working memory capacity and precision have produced mixed results (Gilbert and Fiez, 2004;Krawczyk et al, 2007;Kawasaki and Yamaguchi, 2013;van den Berg et al, 2020). Here, we find that rewards do modulate working memory performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 43%

“…A number of studies have examined the influence of monetary incentives on working memory performance. Some of these studies indicate that working memory capacity is enhanced by rewards (Gilbert and Fiez, 2004;Kawasaki and Yamaguchi, 2013), while others find no effect of reward on capacity (Krawczyk et al, 2007;van den Berg et al, 2020). An additional set of studies investigating the relationship between monetary incentives and visual working memory have associated rewards with specific items in the display and have provided more definitive evidence for improved recall precision for rewarded items (Gong and Li, 2014;Klyszejko et al, 2014;Wallis et al, 2015;Thomas et al, 2016;Klink et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reward influences the allocation but not the availability of resources in visual working memory

Adkins

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Visual working memory possesses strict capacity constraints which place limits on the availability of resources for encoding and maintaining information. Studies have shown that prospective rewards improve performance on visual working memory tasks, but it remains unclear whether rewards increase total resource availability or rather influence the allocation of resources without affecting availability. Participants performed a continuous report visual working memory task with oriented grating stimuli. On each trial, participants were presented with a priority cue, which signaled the item most likely to be probed, and a reward cue, which signaled the magnitude of a performance-contingent reward. We showed that rewards decreased recall error for cued items and increased recall error for non-cued items. We further demonstrated that rewards produced a tradeoff in the probability of successfully encoding a cued versus a non-cued item rather than a tradeoff in recall precision or the probability of binding errors. Lastly, we showed that rewards only affected resource allocation when participants were given the opportunity to engage proactive control prior to encoding. These findings indicate that rewards influence the flexible allocation of resources during selection and encoding in visual working memory, but do not augment total capacity.

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“…This suggests that reward did not facilitate the "loading" of an item into active WM to allow feature recall, and may suggest that the memory storage aspect of this task was unaffected by motivation. Previous studies have also found no benefit of reward on WM precision (van den Berg et al, 2020;Wallis et al, 2015), and others have found rewards and punishments affect item selection during WM (Fallon, Dolfen, Parolo, Zokaei, & Husain, 2019;Wallis et al, 2015). Some of these tasks used trial-wide rewards, while others used item-specific rewards, and the motivational processes will depend heavily on this as well as when the rewards were known.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Motivation Improves Working Memory by Two Processes: Prioritisation and Retrieval Thresholds

Grogan¹,

Randhawa²,

Kim³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Motivation can improve performance when the potential rewards outweigh the cost of effort expended. In working memory (WM), people can prioritise rewarded items at the expense of unrewarded items, suggesting a fixed memory capacity. But can capacity itself increase with motivation? Across four experiments (N = 30-34) we demonstrate motivational improvements in WM even when all items were rewarded. However, this was not due to better memory precision, but rather better selection of the probed item within memory. Motivational improvements operated independently of encoding, maintenance, or attention shifts between items in memory. Moreover, motivation slowed responses. This contrasted with the benefits of rewarding items unequally, which allowed prioritisation of one item over another. We conclude that motivation can improve memory recall, not via precision or capacity, but via speed-accuracy trade-offs when selecting the item to retrieve.

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No effect of monetary reward in a visual working memory task

Cited by 8 publications

References 56 publications

More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance

More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance

Reward influences the allocation but not the availability of resources in visual working memory

Motivation Improves Working Memory by Two Processes: Prioritisation and Retrieval Thresholds

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