Journal article
The impact of reward and punishment on skill learning depends on task demands.
- Abstract:
- Reward and punishment motivate behavior, but it is unclear exactly how they impact skill performance and whether the effect varies across skills. The present study investigated the effect of reward and punishment in both a sequencing skill and a motor skill context. Participants trained on either a sequencing skill (serial reaction time task) or a motor skill (force-tracking task). Skill knowledge was tested immediately after training, and again 1 hour, 24-48 hours, and 30 days after training. We found a dissociation of the effects of reward and punishment on the tasks, primarily reflecting the impact of punishment. While punishment improved serial reaction time task performance, it impaired force-tracking task performance. In contrast to prior literature, neither reward nor punishment benefitted memory retention, arguing against the common assumption that reward ubiquitously benefits skill retention. Collectively, these results suggest that punishment impacts skilled behavior more than reward in a complex, task dependent fashion.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 866.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/srep36056
Authors
+ National Institutes of Health
More from this funder
- Funding agency for:
- Steel, A
- Grant:
- ZIA MH002893-10
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Journal:
- Scientific Reports More from this journal
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 1
- Pages:
- 36056
- Publication date:
- 2016-10-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-10-11
- DOI:
- ISSN:
-
2045-2322
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
pubs:655672
- UUID:
-
uuid:045471de-f9d0-4331-9918-f63cd49673db
- Local pid:
-
pubs:655672
- Source identifiers:
-
655672
- Deposit date:
-
2017-05-11
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Stagg et al
- Copyright date:
- 2016
- Notes:
- © The Author(s) 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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