Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Experimental Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Participant motivation and engagement are critical for experimental integrity in psychology.
• A common challenge is misaligned goals between researchers (data quality) and participants (task completion speed).
• Novel experimental methods are needed to enhance participant experience without compromising scientific validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of a gamified reward system on participant engagement and cognitive processes.
• To explore how points and sound effects influence intrinsic motivation and attentional capture in a visual search task.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed a visual search task with a gamified system awarding points and sound effects for fast, accurate responses.
• A training phase probabilistically associated target colors with reward multipliers.
• A test phase assessed attentional capture by presenting previously rewarded colors as distractors without explicit rewards.

Main Results:

• The gamified system, including subtle social competition, fostered positive intrinsic motivation.
• Pleasant, arousing sound effects led to attentional capture for previously rewarded colors.
• Participants exhibited significantly longer response times when previously rewarded colors appeared as distractors.

Conclusions:

• Gamified elements like points and sound effects can effectively align researcher and participant goals.
• This approach enhances participant engagement and cognitive performance, specifically improving attentional capture.
• The findings suggest a viable method for improving experimental design in psychological research.