Figure 8. The effect of attentional load and token gain/loss expectancy on post-learning performance and response times.

(A) Post-learning accuracy (y-axis) when expecting varying token loss (red) and gains (green) at low/medium/high attentional load (line thickness). Overall, learning efficiency decreased with larger penalties and improved with larger expected token-gains. (B): The motivation modulation index for low/medium/high attentional load (x-axis) shows that the improvement with higher gains was absent at high load, and the detrimental effect of penalties on performance was evident at all loads. (C,D) Same format as A,B for response times. Subject slowed down when expecting larger penalties and speed up responses when expecting larger gains (C). These effects were largest at low attentional load and decreased at higher load (D). Dashed red lines show ground mean across all attention loads.