Motivated executive attention—incentives and the noise-compatibility effect

The motivational context is an important variable in experimental research. The present study investigates the effects of reward and punishment on performance in a noise-compatibility-task [Eriksen, B.A., Eriksen, C.W., 1974. Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception and Psychophysics 16 (1), 143–149]. Flanking distractors indicated a response, which was identical, undefined, or opposite to the appropriate response indicated by the central target. At the beginning of each trial a cue specified positive, negative or no reinforcement in order to elicit three different motivational states: approach, avoidance and a non-reinforced neutral state. Fifty-three subjects (aged 20–27 years) participated. Incompatibility effects on reaction times and percentage errors were analysed as a function of motivational state, as were the effects on two ERPs, the lateralised readines potential (LRP) and the N2. Error and LRP data showed effects of reinforcement only when incompatible distractors were present, which indicates that controlled processing depends on the motivational context. In contrast to previous findings, the N2 was not found to depend on response conflict.