The differential outcomes effect (DOE) in spatial localization: An investigation with adults

We investigated whether search accuracy of adult humans could be enhanced using differential reward contingencies in landmark-based spatial tasks conducted on a computer screen. We found that search accuracy was significantly enhanced by differential outcomes in a conditional spatial search task, in which the landmark-to-goal relationship depended on a previously presented sample object (Experiment 4). In contrast, no significant differential outcomes effect (DOE) was seen in several other variations of spatial search tasks. We interpret the pattern of significant and non-significant results in terms of the information value of outcome expectancies. To our knowledge this is the first report of a DOE in a landmark-based spatial localization task and is one of only a few demonstrations that differential outcomes can enhance memory performance in normal functioning adults.