title: The influence of reward associations on conflict processing in the Stroop task.
abstract: Performance in a behavioral task can be facilitated by associating stimulus properties with reward. In contrast, conflicting information is known to impede task performance. Here we investigated how reward associations influence the within-trial processing of conflicting information using a color-naming Stroop task in which a subset of ink colors (task-relevant dimension) was associated with monetary incentives. We found that color-naming performance was enhanced on trials with potential-reward versus those without. Moreover, in potential-reward trials, typical conflict-induced performance decrements were attenuated if the incongruent word (task-irrelevant dimension) was unrelated to reward. In contrast, incongruent words that were semantically related to reward-predicting ink colors interfered with performance in potential-reward trials and even more so in no-reward trials, despite the semantic meaning being entirely task-irrelevant. These observations imply that the prospect of reward enhances the processing of task-relevant stimulus information, whereas incongruent reward-related information in a task-irrelevant dimension can impede task performance.
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. ruth.krebs@duke.edu
authors.forename: Ruth M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Krebs
authors.forename: Carsten N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Boehler
authors.forename: Marty G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Woldorff
mesh_terms: D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult