The role of reward and task demand in value-based strategic allocation of auditory comprehension effort

Abstract

Consistent with previous studies on effort regulation, reward and task demand appear to be associated with auditory comprehension effort allocation in an interactive manner when strategic effort control was required to achieve a reward goal. The young normal-hearing listeners in this study prioritized their effort to relatively easy task items over difficult ones at high levels of reward, suggesting a cost-effective value-based strategic effort allocation. Reward significantly improved task performance in terms of accuracy at difficult listening conditions. These findings support the incorporation of affective factors (e.g., reward) and the utility of the value-based strategic effort allocation paradigm in the experimental setting to understand how clinically relevant factors (such as hearing loss and age) might change strategic auditory comprehension behavior.