Monetary and non-monetary incentives in motor performance

Performance on a previously reported simple motor task of drawing between parallel straight lines was measured in threo experiments. The experiments were identical except for the monetary value of the cumulative achievement feedback. Kesults for movement speed were identical for all three experiments, but errors were reduced by 45% when real rather than imaginary money was used as feedback. Overall performance was greatly improved from previous experiments where no knowledge of results were given. Neither the risk of losing money nor changes in the cost of errors altered performance significantly. The implications of these results for motor skills research and testing are discussed.