The effects of investment cost and cues of reward and punishment on cognitive task performance

Based on an adapted monetary incentive delay task, this study involved 81 participants from China, including 40 from Experiment 1 and 41 from Experiment 2, we conducted behavioral experiments across two distinct gain conditions: one with an unknown expected return and the another with a fixed expected return. Our objective was to examine the effects of investment cost and reward-punishment cues on performance in a simple cognitive task. The findings from Experiment 1 revealed that reward cues significantly promoted individual behavioral performance.In Experiment 2, a significant main effect of investment cost was observed, with individuals facing lower investment costs showing better performance and higher payoffs under equivalent reward-punishment cue conditions.