High Stakes and Distractions: The Source of Cognitive Load and its Effect on Real Effort Performance

Last registered on April 16, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
High Stakes and Distractions: The Source of Cognitive Load and its Effect on Real Effort Performance
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013307
Initial registration date
April 05, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 16, 2024, 1:02 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Texas A&M University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University
PI Affiliation
Agricultural University of Athens

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-04-05
End date
2024-08-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Workers periodically worry about issues unrelated to the job, such as dwelling on whether the front door is locked or stress induced from other factors. Similarly, workers are routinely under pressure to meet their job’s demands, increasing productivity to meet deadlines, or achieve performance goals. Previous work has studied the response to incentives under both these two sources of stress experienced by the workforce in isolation, characterizing non-work-related stressors as distractions and work-related pressures as performance under pressure. There is no research that we are aware of directly testing whether these two roots of stress differentially affect the way in which workers respond to incentives. The main objective of this study is to investigate whether job related, and non-job-related sources of cognitive load produce different effects on performance under the lens of utility theory. Specifically, using a modified real effort task first introduced in Gächter et al. (2016), we propose and implement a design to determine whether exogenous increases in cognitive load caused by distractions unrelated to the real effort payments or payments contingent upon the real effort task differentially affect the performance of workers when facing different incentive structures.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Drichoutis, Andreas, Marco Palma and Brian Toney. 2024. "High Stakes and Distractions: The Source of Cognitive Load and its Effect on Real Effort Performance." AEA RCT Registry. April 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13307-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-04-05
Intervention End Date
2024-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We are interested in analyzing the earnings in the two tasks, the probability of recalling the number in the digit recall task, the production function in the ball catching task, the difference in the arousal & cognitive load levels between the payment scheme treatment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In the experiment, subjects complete 24 Gächter et al. (2016)’s ball catching tasks along with a digit recall task. In the ball catching task, subjects face 3 different incentive levels: (c,P)={(5,10),(10,20),(5,20)}. For the digit recall task, half of the tasks are completed under {low cognitive load where they must recall a 1-digit number, while the other half of the tasks are completed under high cognitive load where they must recall a number of digits determined by a pilot. The within-subject cognitive load treatment is administered in blocks: in the first half of the experiment (first 12 rounds), subjects will face high/low cognitive load; in the second half of the experiment (last 12 rounds), subject will face low/high cognitive load. The order of the high/low blocks presented to subject is randomized to account for ordering effects. We will recruit from a subject pool of students because they are more responsive to incentives and exclude anyone with a pacemaker due to the use of the GSR in our design. During the session, subjects will wear GSR to estimate their physiological arousal and EEG to estimate their cognitive load.

At the start of the experiment, subjects are randomly assigned between the additive and multiplicative treatment conditions which remains unchanged throughout the duration of the study. In the additive scheme treatment, the payment between the ball catching and the digit recall tasks are independent of each other; in the multiplicative scheme treatment, the payment in the digit recall task depends on the performance in the ball catching task. Specifically, subjects in the additive condition receive a fixed payment for correctly recalling the number in the digit recall task, while subjects in the multiplicative condition have their earnings in the ball catching task doubled if they correctly recall the number in the digit recall task.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization of treatment and rounds is done through a computer.
Randomization Unit
We random individual subjects between the payment scheme treatment.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
156 subjects
Sample size: planned number of observations
3,744 rounds across 156 subjects
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
78 subjects per payment scheme treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.5
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Human Research Protection Program
IRB Approval Date
2024-03-28
IRB Approval Number
IRB2022-1334D
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials