Piece-Rate Time-Based Incentives Improve Sustained Attention

In two experiments, we investigated the effects of a time-based incentive on sustained attention. In both experiments, participants in an incentive condition were told the experiment duration would depend in part on their performance. Control condition participants were not given such a contingency. While both conditions displayed performance decrements (i.e., lengthening of reaction times across time), the incentivized condition demonstrated a shallower decrement. Participants in the incentive condition also reported more stable motivation and alertness across time. Finally, a combined analysis of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that the relatively more stable alertness in the incentive conditions mediated the conditional differences in the time-on-task decrement. We concluded that (a) when faced with a difficult mental activity, people engage attention as a utility-based choice, and their motivation to perform the task is sensitive to potential rewards and (b) people will feel less mental strain in completing tasks if provided performance-contingent rewards. General Audience Summary People perform many attention-demanding tasks like driving, completing homework, and scanning for errors in a budget. Over time, these tasks can become increasingly straining, which can urge the need for breaks and lead to a diversion of attention toward other activities. Why is this the case? Theories for why attention wanes across time differ. One set of theories argues that there is a fundamental limitation of the human cognitive system: We can only pay attention for so long, and breaks are necessary for cognitive restoration. However, other theories argue that the cognitive system can, in fact, perform complex mental activities for extended periods of time, given the desire to do so. That is, sustaining one's attention is a matter of willingness, not capability. In the current experiments, we investigated the effects of incentives on performance on a simple sustained attention task. We proposed that leveraging time (early release from a task based on a piece-rate incentive structure) would help to increase motivation and decrease feelings of fatigue over time, which in turn would stabilize cognitive performance across time. We found that participants in the incentivized group indeed demonstrated higher motivation levels, more alertness (less fatigue), and more stable performance than participants in the control condition (no time reward). Follow-up analyses indicated that s