Reward Rapidly Enhances Visual Perception
通过两个实验发现，在短暂呈现且无意识感知的视觉刺激编码阶段提供高奖励信息，能显著提升被试的响应准确率，表明奖励可快速调节视觉感知的编码过程。
Rewards exert a deep influence on our cognition and behavior. Here, we used a paradigm in which reward information was provided at either encoding or retrieval of a brief, masked stimulus to show that reward can also rapidly modulate perceptual encoding of visual information. Experiment 1 ( n = 30 adults) showed that participants’ response accuracy was enhanced when a to-be-encoded grating signaled high reward relative to low reward, but only when the grating was presented very briefly and participants reported that they were not consciously aware of it. Experiment 2 ( n = 29 adults) showed that there was no difference in participants’ response accuracy when reward information was instead provided at the stage of retrieval, ruling out an explanation of the reward-modulation effect in terms of differences in motivated retrieval. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral evidence consistent with a rapid reward modulation of visual perception, which may not require consciousness.