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Sketchpad Series

Does Rewarding “Effort” Rather than Accuracy Alter Feedback- and Reward-related ERPs in a Declarative Memory Task?

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Jennifer Mangels^1,2 (jennifer.mangels@baruch.cuny.edu), Rebecca McCune¹, Daisy Reyes², Caesar Ekya²; ¹Baruch College, CUNY, ²Graduate Center of CUNY

Rewards are most beneficial to learning if they are contingent on agency and competence. When competence is defined exclusively as accuracy, however, individuals may avoid more challenging, effortful tasks over concerns that mistakes will result in reward loss. In the present study, we asked whether and how rewarding students for “genuine effort,” rather than either accuracy exclusively (or mere participation), would support sustained engagement in a challenging task and lead to improved feedback-based learning outcomes. EEG was recorded as students attempted difficult general knowledge questions (30% correct) and received accuracy feedback which included the correct answer (i.e., learning opportunity). In a “reward” block, students then intermittently (~30%) received a $0.25 reward (signaled by a yellow disk) not only when correct but also if their incorrect answer was semantically-related to the correct answer; semantically-unrelated answers were reward-ineligible. In a “control” block, yellow disks appeared based on the same contingencies but were not associated with reward and rather, were counted. Successful learning was based on a subsequent surprise retest. Data collection is ongoing, but we predict that under reward framing compared to control framing, learning will be facilitated and the feedback-related negativity (FRN) to effortful incorrect responses may be attenuated because the prospect of reward reduces the loss/negative valence. FRN amplitude may be inversely related to indices of reward salience (RewP). This novel approach to reward may provide insights into the FRN, as well as an evidenced-based way to motivate students to approach challenging tasks and learn optimally from mistakes.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic