Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task
Open accessAbstract
In psychology research studies, the goals of the experimenter and the goals of the participants often do not align. Researchers are interested in having participants who take the experimental task seriously, whereas participants are interested in earning their incentive (e.g., money or course credit) as quickly as possible. Creating experimental methods that are pleasant for participants and that reward them for effortful and accurate data generation, while not compromising the scientific integrity of the experiment, would benefit both experimenters and participants alike. Here, we explored a gamelike system of points and sound effects that rewarded participants for fast and accurate responses. We measured participant engagement at both cognitive and perceptual levels and found that the point system (which invoked subtle, anonymous social competition between participants) led to positive intrinsic motivation, while the sound effects (which were pleasant and arousing) led to attentional capture for rewarded colors. In a visual search task, points were awarded after each trial for fast and accurate responses, accompanied by short, pleasant sound effects. We adapted a paradigm from Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25):10367-10371, 2011b), in which participants completed a training phase during which red and green targets were probabilistically associated with reward (a point bonus multiplier). During a test phase, no points or sounds were delivered, color was irrelevant to the task, and previously rewarded targets were sometimes presented as distractors. Significantly longer response times on trials in which previously rewarded colors were present demonstrated attentional capture, and positive responses to a five-question intrinsic-motivation scale demonstrated participant engagement.
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Points boosted subjective engagement scores in a visual search task.
“and boosted subjective engagement scores.”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
Sound effects did not improve scores of subjective engagement in a visual search task.
“and did not improve scores of subjective engagement.”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
These results highlight the delicate nature of designing gamified cognitive tests because something as innocuous as a few sound effects had deleterious effects on participant performance.
“These results highlight the delicate nature of designing gamified cognitive tests because something as innocuous as a few sound effects had deleterious effects on participant performance.”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
Points appeared to have no effect on data in a visual search task.
“Points appeared to have no effect on data”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
Sound effects led to increased reaction times in a visual search task.
“They found that sound effects led to increased reaction times”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
There were some indications that gamification may actually worsen data quality.
“and there were some indications that it may actually worsen it [17,18,34,36].”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
Katz et al and Miranda and Palmer highlight that balancing motivation and performance can be difficult, with several game mechanics having unforeseen deleterious effects on performance.
“However, Katz et al [34] and Miranda and Palmer [36] highlight that this can be difficult balancing act, with several game mechanics having unforeseen deleterious effects on performance.”
From Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016) · cites this paper as [36]
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The power of play: gamification in virtual workplace training
Eger, V. M., Georganta, E., Zuercher, P.-D., Mueller, F., Bohné, T., & Diefenbach, S. (2024) · European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology · doi:10.1080/1359432x.2024.2412360 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“…(i.e., con-trol over characters and activities) virtual training environments are the freedom to investigate and discover task features (i.e., exploration, Dalgarno & Lee, 2010; Noe et al., 2014) and receive feedback during task execution (Den den et al., 2017; Miranda & Palmer, 2014).”
Worse in real life: An eye-tracking examination of the cost of CAD at low prevalence.
Drew, T. W., Guthrie, J., & Reback, I. (2020) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied · doi:10.1037/xap0000277 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Double reading reduces miss errors in low prevalence search.
Kunar, M. A., Watson, D. G., & Taylor‐Phillips, S. (2020) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied · doi:10.1037/xap0000335 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Khaleghi, A., Narimani, A., Aghaei, Z., Banaraki, A. K., & Hassani‐Abharian, P. (2024) · JMIR Serious Games · doi:10.2196/34535 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“After each level, participants completed a 10-item questionnaire that was previously used to evaluate subjective engagement [36-39].”
MethodStamatis, C. A., Heusser, A. C., Simon, T. J., Alailima, T., & Kollins, S. H. (2024) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/s41398-024-03045-0 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“Understanding the degree to which patient interactions with DTx correlate with validated measures of cognition is essential, given documented evidence that changing even minor elements of a cognitive task may interfere with its validity as a scienti fi c tool [11 – 13].”
BackgroundPolicing Fish at Boston's Museum of Science: Studying Audiovisual Interaction in the Wild
Goldberg, H., Sun, Y., Hickey, T. J., Shinn‐Cunningham, B. G., & Sekuler, R. (2015) · i-Perception · doi:10.1177/2041669515599332 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“To minimize such risks, we embedded our experiment within a simple video game, which was designed to engage and amuse participants while also generating data on interactions between what subjects saw and what they heard (e.g., Abramov et al., 1984; Miranda & Palmer, 2014).”
BackgroundMethodBiggs, A. T. (2017) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.130.4.0439 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“…of previously published works (Appelbaum, Cain, Darling, & Mitroff, 2013; Clark, Fleck, & Mitroff, 2011; Donohue, Woldorff, & Mitroff, 2010), and although the entire survey was administered to participants, the current investigation was concerned only with the subset of information specifically”
BackgroundResultMartins, P., Barbosa-Pereira, D., Valgas-Costa, M., & Mansur-Alves, M. (2020) · Applied neuropsychology. Child · doi:10.1080/21622965.2020.1846128 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Bi-directional audiovisual influences on temporal modulation discrimination
Varghese, L., Mathias, S. R., Bensussen, S., Chou, K. F., Goldberg, H. R., Sun, Y., Sekuler, R., & Shinn‐Cunningham, B. G. (2017) · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · doi:10.1121/1.4979470 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Value-driven attention and associative learning models: a computational simulation analysis
Jeong, J. H., Ju, J., Kim, S., Choi, J.-S., & Cho, Y. S. (2023) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-023-02296-0 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Most previous studies using the classical VDAC paradigm failed to observe a statistical difference in behavioral performances between the target types in the training phase (Anderson & Halpern, 2017; Kim & Beck, 2020; Miranda & Palmer, 2014; Roper & Vecera, 2016).”
Influence of game features on attention in adults
Gallen, C. L., Schachtner, J. N., Anguera‐Singla, R., Anguera, J. A., & Gazzaley, A. H. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1123306 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“However, previous work has yielded mixed results (Lumsden et al., 2016; Khaleghi et al., 2021), with some showing game features improve attention (Delisle and Braun, 2011; Shaw et al., 2016) and others finding they impair it (McPherson and Burns, 2007, 2008; Miranda and Palmer, 2014).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialMo' Money, Mo' Problems: Monetary Motivation Can Exacerbate the Attentional Blink
Biggs, A. T., Adamo, S. H., & Mitroff, S. R. (2015) · Perception · doi:10.1068/p7916 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Previous research has shown that a point system is capable of inducing positive intrinsic motivation (eg Miranda & Palmer, 2014), and here we further enhanced motivation by relating a point system to a monetary incentive—an additional US $50 was rewarded to the individual who accumulated the most…”
BackgroundReward reduces the fission illusion in the sound-induced flash illusion
Yu, G., Liu, C., Liu, X., Wang, A., & Zhang, M. (2022) · Perception · doi:10.1177/03010066221093479 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Inefficient Eye Movements: Gamification Improves Task Execution, But Not Fixation Strategy
James, W. R. G., Reuther, J., Angus, E., Clarke, A. D. F., & Hunt, A. R. (2019) · Vision · doi:10.3390/vision3030048 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Markovitch, B., Kamps, J. C. C., Markopoulos, P., & Birk, M. V. (2025) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2025.108720 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Markovitch, B., Markopoulos, P., & Birk, M. V. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642418 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…cognitive games maintain tight and task-like experimental control and thus show disappointingly modest benefits to players’ experience compared to cognitive tasks [e.g. 36, 62, 63, 71, 93, 105], as cognitive games overlook a core feature of good games: giving players a sense over the interaction.”
BackgroundПрименение компьютерных игровых технологий для развития регуляторных функций дошкольников
Veraksa, A. N., & Bukhalenkova, D. А. (2017) · Российский психологический журнал · doi:10.21702/rpj.2017.3.6 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Learned prioritization yields attentional biases through selection history
Munneke, J., Corbett, J. E., & der Burg, E. V. (2020) · Attention Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/s13414-020-01970-y · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“These studies (Grubb & Li, 2018; Miranda & Palmer, 2014; Sha & Jiang, 2016) provide tentative evidence that observed value-driven attentional capture effects may not necessarily be fully attributed to a lingering reward signal upon which selective attention acts (but see Anderson 2011b; Anderson &…”
BackgroundResultTwo distinct attentional priorities guide exploratory and exploitative gaze
Wen, X., Hassani, S. A., Neumann, A. R., Tiesinga, P. H. E., & Womelsdorf, T. (2026) · iScience · doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.115218 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Can gamification improve children’s performance in mental rotation?
Zakrzewski, S., Merrill, E. C., & Yang, Y. (2025) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106169 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
The value of error-correcting responses for cognitive assessment in games
Markovitch, B., Evans, N. J., & Birk, M. V. (2024) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-024-71762-z · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“The following criteria led to a player’s exclusion: average frames-per-second lower than 35 across the study (study 1: 2, study 2: 1); first response accuracy no higher than 3 standard errors from 0.5 (11, 18); and non-response on more than 10% of non-lava trials (7, 2).”
BackgroundInfluentialDigitale Video- & Spiel-Assessments: Psychometrie und Maschinelles Lernen
Leutner, F., & Aichholzer, C. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-658-30905-3_3 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
The role of feature and spatial location in value-driven attentional capture
Bai, X., Liu, L., Juan, S. O. N. G., & Zhiying, G. U. O. (2016) · Acta Psychologica Sinica · doi:10.3724/sp.j.1041.2016.01357 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Gamification of Visual Search in Real World Scenes
Hess, A. S. (2017) · Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Training Novices to Discriminate Retinal Diseases Using Perceptual Learning
Amiri, E., Sha, P., & Palmer, E. M. (2020) · Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting · doi:10.1177/1071181320641347 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“However, there is still a debate in the literature as to if gamification itself leads to improved performance on laboratory tasks with several authors reporting negative findings in this regard (Hawkins, Rae, Nesbitt, & Brown, 2013; Miranda & Palmer, 2014).”
BackgroundResultSelf-citationCudo, A., & Kopiś-Posiej, N. (2026) · International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction · doi:10.1007/s11469-025-01618-8 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Attentional Capture for Simple Shapes from Gamified Visual Search Training
Palmer, E. M., Davies, L., Nguyen, D. T., Berndt, M., & Miranda, A. T. (2014) · Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting · doi:10.1177/1541931214581371 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Miranda and Palmer (2014) adapted the Anderson, et al. (2011) paradigm and turned it into a visual search “game.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationInefficient eye movements: Gamification improves task execution, but not fixation strategyPreprint
James, W. R. G., Reuther, J., Angus, E., Clarke, A. D. F., & Hunt, A. R. (2019) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/394mw · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Colton, E., Anderson, A. C., Hanegraaf, L., & Verdejo‐García, A. (2025) · doi:10.2196/preprints.79784 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Two Distinct Attentional Priorities Guide Exploratory and Exploitative Gaze in ParallelPreprint
Wen, X., Hassani, A. S., Neumann, A. R., Tiesinga, P. H. E., & Womelsdorf, T. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.09.20.677503 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…akin to the detrimental selection history effects in visual search studies where choosing non-rewarded distractors is non-adaptive and impairs performance (Kyllingsbaek et al., 2001; Kyllingsbaek et al., 2014; Miranda and Palmer, 2014; Lin et al., 2016; Sha and Jiang, 2016; Qu et al., 2017).”
The manifold role of reward value on visual attention
Roper, Z. J. J., Vaidya, J. G., Vecera, S. P., Wasserman, E. A., Hazeltine, E., & Voss, M. (2015) · doi:10.17077/etd.5qy3qyg9
“In a gamified VDAC study, game points without monetary rewards did not produce the VDAC effect (Miranda & Palmer, 2014).”
BackgroundMethodNo effect of gamification on attrition from a longitudinal cognitive testing studyPreprint
Lumsden, J., Skinner, A., Coyle, D., Lawrence, N., & Munafo, M. R. (2017) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/ya4sn
Exploring the Gamification Paradox
Śliwińska, K. (2019) · doi:10.31979/etd.t7vy-994j
Bosch, M. D. P. B. (2018) · doi:10.31979/etd.8q6h-9w47
Learned cognitive control counteracts value-driven attentional capture
Walle, A., Druey, M. D., & Hübner, R. (2023) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-023-01792-1
Can Feedback Boost Prospective Memory Performance?
Ren, Z., Liu, W., & Wang, L. (2023) · The American Journal of Psychology · doi:10.5406/19398298.136.1.06
The role of framing, agency and uncertainty in a focus-divide dilemma
Claydon, J., James, W. R. G., Clarke, A. D. F., & Hunt, A. R. (2023) · Memory & Cognition · doi:10.3758/s13421-023-01484-6
“Third, motivation (or the lack of it) was evaluated by James et al. (2019) using gamification, with the logic that enjoyable, game-like experiments encourage effortful attention to accuracy rather than a focus on completing the experiment as fast as possible (Miranda & Palmer, 2014).”
The rise and fall of durable color-induced attentional bias
Kuo, C., Yeh, Y., & Chao, H.-F. (2024) · Attention Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/s13414-024-02946-y
The Effects of Stress on Attentional Networks
Tsvinev, A. (2024) · doi:10.31979/etd.g3wg-5nxg
Wang, X., & Zou, F. (2024) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-76815-6_13
Distraction driven by reward history: Attentional capture and sequential effects
Cesarei, A. D., Mastria, S., & Codispoti, M. (2026) · Attention Perception & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/s13414-025-03167-7
“…& Yantis, 2012; Failing & Theeuwes, 2014; Kiss et al., 2009; Krebs et al., 2011; Marchner & Preuschhof, 2018; Sha & Jiang, 2016), and other studies failing to observe the same effect (e.g., Anderson, 2016; Anderson et al., 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016; Miranda & Palmer, 2014; Roper et al., 2014).”
Wang, Y. H., & Wang, H. H. (2025) · International Conference on Education and Multimedia Technology (ICEMT) · doi:10.1145/3761843.3761855
Colton, E., McLean, C. P., Anderson, A. C., Hanegraaf, L., & Verdejo-García, A. (2026) · JMIR Serious Games · doi:10.2196/79784 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Multiple mechanisms are assessed in a single session, allowing outcomes to be analyzed and interpreted in a holistic manner, while using gamification to maximize consumer engagement [67-69].”
Turning cognitive science into game-based biomarkers: Acute stress detection with tunnel runner
Markovitch, B., Kamps, J. C. C., Orij, J. C., Markopoulos, P., & Birk, M. V. (2026) · Computers in Human Behavior Reports · doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101176
Broer, M. I., Barendse, M. E. A., van den Brink-Steinmann, L. J., Snijders, A. L., Meijer, M. N., Paludanus, S., van der Weijden-Germann, M., Bilder, R. M., Ophoff, R. A., & van Haren, N. E. M. (2025) · JMIR Formative Research · doi:10.2196/86998
Alignment in Gamified Cognitive Assessment
Bauge, K., & Babić, A. (2026) · World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, September 7 - 12, 2009, Munich, Germany · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-37739-5_29
- Authors
- Miranda, A. T., & Palmer, E. M.
- Affiliations
- Wichita State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Palmer, Evan M.
- ORCID
- Palmer, Evan M.
- Venue
- Behavior Research Methods
- Published
- 2013-07-09
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 159-172
- ISSN
- 1554-351X (ISSN-L)
- 1554-3528
- OpenAlex
- W2144636433
- Cited by
- 86
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 11.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Behavior Research Methods (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Holmes Museum Of Anthropology (Wichita State University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- intrinsic motivation, attentional capture, gamification, reward points, sound effects, participant engagement, visual search, distractor interference, social competition, reaction time (psychology)
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Auditory Perception, Games, Experimental, Humans, Motivation, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reaction Time, Research Design, Reward, United States, Visual Perception, Behavioral Research, Healthy Volunteers
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