Differential outcomes and delayed visual recognition memory in healthy adults using masked outcomes

The Differential Outcomes Procedure (DOP) refers to the increased learning and retention of symbolic relations observed in conditional discrimination tasks when each correct choice is reinforced with its own unique outcome (for a review, see Mok, Estévez & Overmeier, 2010; Urcuioli, 2005). The main aim of the present study was to test whether this procedure would improve the execution of a computerized visual recognition memory task involving the subliminal presentation of the outcomes in a group of healthy adults. Participants showed a better accuracy when each stimulus to be remembered was paired with its own outcome (the differential outcomes condition). To our knowledge this is the first demonstration that the DOP can enhance visual working memory performance in adults when a pattern mask is presented immediately after the outcomes. The implications of this finding for the theoretical accounts of the differential outcomes effect are discussed. This research was supported by grant PSI2012-39228 from Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad