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

Kimberly S Chiew,Todd S Braver

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00325

Abstract

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

Highlights

Dambacher et al (2011) highlight three main findings in their data: (1) performance improves under monetary incentive more when slow responses are punished than when they are not; (2) improvement is not observed when punishment for errors is emphasized instead; and (3) performance still improves without penalties as long as fast, accurate performance is emphasized with reward
Dambacher et al (2011) interpret these results as evidence that emphasizing speed optimizes performance, while emphasis of both speed and accuracy fails to enhance performance because determining an optimal response strategy is more difficult under these competing emphases. This finding contributes toward a mechanistic understanding of when monetary incentives improve cognitive performance and when they do not
Speed–accuracy tradeoff functions (SATFs) under each of these deadlines revealed speed–accuracy shifts in all conditions across studies, with speed increasing and accuracy decreasing with shorter deadlines

Summary

Introduction

Dambacher et al (2011) highlight three main findings in their data: (1) performance improves under monetary incentive more when slow responses are punished than when they are not; (2) improvement is not observed when punishment for errors is emphasized instead; and (3) performance still improves without penalties as long as fast, accurate performance is emphasized with reward. Dambacher et al (2011) interpret these results as evidence that emphasizing speed optimizes performance, while emphasis of both speed and accuracy (e.g., in Experiment 2) fails to enhance performance because determining an optimal response strategy is more difficult under these competing emphases. In all three experiments of the present study, deadlines of varying lengths are used (long, medium, and short). The diffusion model potentially sheds light on how such contributions change under incentive: i.e., whether incentive changes non-decision factors, such as stimulus encoding and response execution; the decision threshold (merely trading accuracy for speed); or enhancing the quality of accumulated information (drift rate) via increased attentional effort, increasing performance speed while maintaining accuracy.

Results

Conclusion