Financial incentives enhance adaptation to a sensorimotor transformation.
Adaptation to sensorimotor transformations has received much attention in recent years. However, the role of motivation and its relation to the implicit and explicit processes underlying adaptation has been neglected thus far. Here, we examine the influence of extrinsic motivation on adaptation to a visuomotor rotation by way of providing financial incentives for accurate movements. Participants in the experimental group "bonus" received a defined amount of money for high end-point accuracy in a visuomotor rotation task; participants in the control group "no bonus" did not receive a financial incentive. Results showed better overall adaptation to the visuomotor transformation in participants who were extrinsically motivated. However, there was no beneficial effect of financial incentives on the implicit component, as assessed by the after-effects, and on separately assessed explicit knowledge. These findings suggest that the positive influence of financial incentives on adaptation is due to a component which cannot be measured by after-effects or by our test of explicit knowledge. A likely candidate is model-free learning based on reward-prediction errors, which could be enhanced by the financial bonuses.
Work and Cognitive Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Jägerstraße 17-19, 52066, Aachen, Germany. kathrin.gajda@psych.rwth-aachen.de.|Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany. kathrin.gajda@psych.rwth-aachen.de.
Kathrin
K
Gajda
Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany.|FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management, iwp Institut für Wirtschaftspsychologie, Essen, Germany.
Sandra
S
Sülzenbrück
Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany.
Herbert
H
Heuer
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation; D055815:Young Adult
Adaptation; Extrinsic motivation; Financial incentives; Implicit learning; Motor learning; Visuomotor rotation