Key result
High motivation via monetary rewards enhanced working memory capacity by modulating late central cognitive processes rather than perceptual functions.
Why the study?
Does high motivation enhance visual working memory capacity through modulation of central cognitive processes?
Does high motivation enhance visual working memory capacity through modulation of central cognitive processes?
Motivation enhances working memory capacity by impacting central cognitive processes rather than perceptual functions.
May guide cognitive interventions; hypothesis-generating for clinical translation.
Motivation is well known to enhance working memory (WM) capacity, but the mechanism underlying this effect remains unclear. The WM process can be divided into encoding, maintenance, and retrieval, and in a change detection visual WM paradigm, the encoding and retrieval processes can be subdivided into perceptual and central processing. To clarify which of these segments are most influenced by motivation, we measured ERPs in a change detection task with differential monetary rewards. The results showed that the enhancement of WM capacity under high motivation was accompanied by modulations of late central components but not those reflecting attentional control on perceptual inputs across all stages of WM. We conclude that the "state-dependent" shift of motivation impacted the central, rather than the perceptual functions in order to achieve better behavioral performances.
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Sanada et al. (2013) studied this question. Differential monetary rewards (high motivation) vs. Low motivation was evaluated on Working memory capacity and ERPs in a change detection task. High motivation via monetary rewards enhanced working memory capacity by modulating late central cognitive processes rather than perceptual functions.
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