What Makes You Go Faster?: The Effect of Reward on Speeded Action under Risk

Xing-Jie Chen, Youngbin Kwak

Evaluating the potential reward and risk associated with a choice of action plays an important role in everyday decision making. However, the details behind how reward and risk affect the decisions for actions remain unclear. The present study investigates the influence of reward and risk on a decision to make a speeded motor response. One hundred and ten college students performed a Speed-Rewarded Go-NoGo task during which they were rewarded proportionally based on the speed and accuracy of their response. On each trial, the magnitude of potential reward and the probability of a forthcoming Go signal (Go-probability) were presented prior to the Go or NoGo signal. Personality traits, such as risk taking and impulsive tendencies, were measured to determine their contribution in explaining individual differences in task performance. The results showed that larger amount of rewards can motivate people to respond faster, and this effect was modulated by the assessed risk, suggesting that decisions for actions are based on a systematic trade-off between rewards and risks. Moreover, when the assessed risk was high, individuals with greater risk taking and impulsive tendencies did not adequately adjust their behavior across different reward levels. These findings shed light on the mechanistic understanding of the effect of reward and risk on decisions for a speeded action.