Monetary Incentives Improve Performance, Sometimes: Speed and Accuracy Matter, and so Might Preparation

摘要

It is intuitive to assume that monetary rewards will improve cognitive performance. However, empirical research has yielded mixed results (Bonner et al., 2000). A new study by Dambacher et al. (2011) seeks to clarify an important factor – payoff schemes – in mediating the relationship between incentives and cognitive performance. Specifically, this paper presents a series of three experiments examining the effect of monetary versus symbolic incentives on performance in the Erikson flanker task (Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974). Fast, accurate performance was rewarded in all payoff schemes, while penalties for errors and slow responses were independently manipulated to examine the effects of emphasizing speed versus accuracy on performance.