The Influence Of Monetary Reward On The Supraliminal And Subliminal Post-conflict Adaptive Behavior

Conflicts are induced when different information or task representations occur simultaneously and interfere with each other.Researchers have found that conflicts can not only interfere with the individual's processing of current information,but also affect the processing of subsequent information.Studies have shown that conflict improve task performance when a task is repeated but hinder task performance when the task is changed.However,most of the previous studies focused on the adaptability of post-conflict at the threshold level.It is worth noting that previous studies have found that conflicting cues under the threshold can also induce conflicts and thus regulate individual behaviors.However,there is no consistent conclusion about whether the supraliminal and subliminal conflict are alike,especially their influence on adaptation to conflict.Hence,it is of theoretical significance to explore the adaptive behavior of repeated tasks and switch tasks after subliminal conflicts and the mechanisms behind them.As a positive feedback,monetary reward plays an important role in guiding cognition and behavior.Therefore,researchers try to explore how monetary reward affects individual cognition and behavior scientifically.Under such context,some researchers have explored the impact of monetary rewards on adaptation to conflict.However,the previous studies focused on exploring the impact of monetary rewards on post-conflict adaptive behavior at the supraliminal level.There is no conclusion whether the influence of monetary reward on the supraliminal post-conflict adaptive behavior can be extended to the subliminal level.There is a close relationship between cognitive control induced by subliminal conflict and cognitive control induced by supraliminal conflict Exploring the impact of monetary reward on subliminal post-conflict adaptive behavior is helpful to examine the influence of monetary reward on post-conflict adaptive behavior more comprehensively.Meanwhile,the inconsonant program setting and value of monetary reward clues in previous studies made it difficult to contrast the result horizontally and reach an agreement.It is necessary to optimize the experimental design and clarify the research results.In this thesis,the effects of supraliminal and subliminal conflicts and monetary rewards on cognitive control were integrated under the same framework.The influence of monetary rewards on adaptation to supraliminal conflict were further examined in repetitive tasks and switched tasks,and we tried to extend the relevant result to subliminal level.There are two studies and four experiments in this thesis The first study(included experiment 1 and experiment 2)explored the influence of monetary reward on the supraliminal and subliminal post-conflict adaptive behavior in repetitive tasks.In experiment 1,high and low reward cues were added in a masked version of the Flanker task to explore the impact of monetary rewards on the adaptive behavior of repetitive tasks after a threshold conflict.Based on Experiment 1,Experiment 2 adjusted the presentation of the prime stimulus to the subliminal level to explore the impact of monetary rewards on the adaptive behavior of repeated tasks after a subliminal conflict.Both experiment 1 and experiment 2 used the experimental design of 2(reward value: high,low)× 2(previous-congruency: consistent,inconsistent)× 2(current-congruency: consistent,inconsistent).The result found that :1)Regardless of whether it is supraliminal or subliminal level,the interaction between current congruency and previous-congruency is significant,indicating a significant conflict adaptation effect exist;2)Regardless of whether it is supraliminal and subliminal level,the conflict adaptation effect under high reward conditions is less than that under low reward conditions.Compared to low reward,high reward counteracts the supraliminal and subliminal conflict adaptation effect to a larger extent.The second study(included experiment 3 and experiment 4)explored the influence of monetary reward on the supraliminal and subliminal post-conflict adaptive behavior in switch tasks.In Experiment 3,High and low reward cues were introduced in a masked switch-task(the combination of an arrow task and a shape task)to explore the impact of monetary rewards on the adaptive behavior of switch tasks after a threshold conflict.Based on Experiment 3 Experiment 4 adjusted the presentation of the prime stimulus to the subliminal level to explore the impact of monetary rewards on the adaptive behavior of switch tasks after a subliminal conflict.Both Experiment 3 and Experiment 4 used the experimental design of the 2(reward value: high,low)× 2(previous-congruency: consistent,inconsistent)× 2(task setting: repeated tasks,switch tasks).The results showed that: 1)Regardless of whether it is supraliminal or subliminal level,the response time of the switch task after the inconsistent trial is longer than that after the consistent trial.The supraliminal and subliminal conflict impeded the switch task,thus the conflict-modulated switch cost is larger;2)Regardless of whether it is supraliminal and subliminal level,the conflict-modulated switch cost under the high reward condition is lower than that under the low reward condition.Compared to lower reward,high reward counteracts the supraliminal and subliminal conflict-modulated switch cost at a greater degree.To sum up,the study showed that the regulation of supraliminal and subliminal conflict on behavior may be identical: supraliminal and subliminal conflict promote task performance when a task is repeated but hinder task performance when the task switches.Furthermore,monetary rewards may modulate the post-conflict adaptive behavior.Specifically,the high reward will weaken adaptation to supraliminal and subliminal conflict to a greater extent,indicating that the monetary rewards not always promote cognitive processing,on the contrary,overvalued rewards may hinder information processing by inducing an individual's excessive positive emotional experience and excessive motivation levels.