FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, 20814, USA.
Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 27;6:36056. doi: 10.1038/srep36056.
Reward and punishment motivate behavior, but it is unclear exactly how they impact skill performance and whether the effect varies across skills. The present study investigated the effect of reward and punishment in both a sequencing skill and a motor skill context. Participants trained on either a sequencing skill (serial reaction time task) or a motor skill (force-tracking task). Skill knowledge was tested immediately after training, and again 1 hour, 24-48 hours, and 30 days after training. We found a dissociation of the effects of reward and punishment on the tasks, primarily reflecting the impact of punishment. While punishment improved serial reaction time task performance, it impaired force-tracking task performance. In contrast to prior literature, neither reward nor punishment benefitted memory retention, arguing against the common assumption that reward ubiquitously benefits skill retention. Collectively, these results suggest that punishment impacts skilled behavior more than reward in a complex, task dependent fashion.
奖励和惩罚可以激励行为，但具体来说，它们如何影响技能表现，以及这种影响是否因技能而异，目前还不清楚。本研究在序列技能和运动技能背景下调查了奖励和惩罚的影响。参与者在序列技能（序列反应时间任务）或运动技能（力跟踪任务）上进行训练。技能知识在训练后立即进行测试，然后在训练后 1 小时、24-48 小时和 30 天再次进行测试。我们发现奖励和惩罚对任务的影响存在差异，主要反映了惩罚的影响。虽然惩罚提高了序列反应时间任务的表现，但它损害了力跟踪任务的表现。与先前的文献不同，奖励和惩罚都没有有益于记忆保留，这与普遍认为奖励普遍有益于技能保留的假设相悖。总的来说，这些结果表明，在复杂的、依赖任务的情况下，惩罚对熟练行为的影响比奖励更大。
