Abstract
Stillings, Allen, & Estes (1968) have demonstrated a facilitating effect of reward magnitude upon reaction time even if the reward was not contingent upon the reaction time. Their study showed anomalous results for the control group, however. They suggested that these anomalous results were due to their experimental group having a cognitive task to perform while the control group did not. Our study added a control group which did have a cognitive task (remembering a number) to perform. We replicated Stillings et al’s noncontingent reward magnitude effect, but did not replicate the anomalous control group results. In addition, we found that the magnitude of a number to be remembered retards reaction time. Several explanations for this latter result are examined and discarded.
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Bernstein, I. H., Pederson, N. N., & Schurman, D. L. Intersensory versus intrasensory contingent information processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972, 94, 156–161.
Lovelace, E. A., & Snodgrass, R. D. Decision times for alphabetic order of letter pairs. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1971, 88, 258–264.
Stillings, N. A., Allen, G. A., & Estes, W. K. Reaction time as a function of noncontingent reward magnitude. Psychonomic Science, 1968, 10, 337–338.
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This research was supported in part by Emory University Grant No. 4272 to the senior author. The authors would like to express their gratitude to W. K. Estes of Rockefeller University for his advice and constructive criticisms. The conclusions and opinions expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors, however, since we did not always follow his advice.
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Schurman, D.L., Belcher, J.P. Noncontingent reward magnitude effects on reaction time: A replication and extension. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 3, 104–106 (1974). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333408
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333408