The reward positivity: Comparing visual and auditory feedback

Past work has demonstrated that the reward positivity (RewP) indexes a feedback-monitoring system sensitive to positive outcomes. Research on the RewP has frequently used simple guessing tasks. In the doors task, participants receive either feedback denoting monetary gain or loss on each trial after choosing one of two doors to "open." Typically, these tasks present visual stimuli on a computer monitor. The current study developed and validated a version of the doors task utilizing auditory stimuli to indicate gains and losses. Thirty-eight young adults completed both a standard visual doors task and a novel auditory doors task. Results indicated that the audio RewP was more positive and peaked earlier than the visual RewP. Additionally, the audio RewP both moderately correlated with and demonstrated similar internal consistency as the visual RewP. These results suggest that the auditory doors task elicits the same feedback-monitoring processes as the visual doors task.