Tonic and phasic activation and arousal effects as a function of feedback in repetitive-choice reaction time tasks

This study examines the effects of positive and negative feedback on performance during choice reaction time tasks to assess whether they differentially affect phasic arousal and tonic activation. Participants (N = 96) received either no feedback or signals of reward, punishment, or both during a semantic and a visuospatial repetitive-choice reaction time task. The number of errors made was analyzed both on a trial-by-trial basis and over a continuous series of 80 trials (assessing phasic and tonic feedback effects, respectively). The results show that punishment and reward have different phasic and tonic effects on performance. The data further show that feedback effects interact with the task characteristics: semantic versus visuospatial, and reaction stimulus preceded by a warning signal versus an irrelevant signal. The interaction effects appear to be consistent with the proposed neurological model.