Children and adults differ in how primary and secondary incentives modulate valuation, effort, and cognitive control.

Veselic S; Smid, CR; Beveridge F; Steinbeis N · 2026 · PubMed Central

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0351143

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This study investigates whether age-related differences in reward-guided behavior stem from variations in reward processing mechanisms or from differing subjective values assigned to primary versus secondary reinforcers. While developmental psychology often assumes that incentives like money are valued similarly across age groups, this assumption may confound interpretations of cognitive development. The authors tested this by comparing 51 adults and 39 children (ages 7–12) using primary reinforcers (pleasant tastes/juice) and age-appropriate secondary reinforcers (money for adults; monetary points exchangeable for prizes for children). The research aimed to determine if the modulation of valuation, effort, and cognitive control by rewards differs between groups depending on the reward type. The experimental design employed three distinct tasks to assess reward-guided behavior. First, an explicit valuation task measured subjective preference through ratings of pleasantness, desire, and anticipated happiness. Second, a novel "willingness to work" task quantified effort discounting by having participants choose whether to exert varying levels of cognitive effort (based on matrix reasoning difficulty) for rewards of different sizes. Third, a go/no-go cognitive control task measured the invigorating effect of rewards on response initiation and inhibition, with rewards delivered deterministically based on performance. Statistical analyses included linear mixed-effects models for valuation and cognitive control, and hierarchical Bayesian modeling for effort discounting. The results revealed significant interactions between age group and reward type across all three measures. In explicit valuation, adults strongly preferred secondary over primary rewards, whereas children showed no significant preference difference between the two types. In the willingness-to-work task, adults discounted the value of primary rewards more heavily than secondary ones, indicating a greater willingness to exert cognitive effort for secondary incentives. Conversely, children discounted secondary rewards more strongly than primary ones, suggesting they were more motivated to exert effort for primary reinforcers. Finally, in the cognitive control task, the invigorating effects of rewards on performance also varied by reward type and age group, consistent with the patterns observed in valuation and effort tasks. These findings were robust after controlling for potential confounds such as thirst and perceived monetary worth of juice. The study concludes that children and adults differ fundamentally in how primary and secondary incentives modulate motivation and cognition. Adults assign higher subjective value to secondary reinforcers, which drives their willingness to exert effort and enhances cognitive control, whereas children value primary and secondary reinforcers more similarly. This challenges the common assumption that secondary rewards are uniformly valued across development. The authors argue that future research must carefully consider the subjective value of incentives when comparing groups, as observed behavioral differences may reflect variations in reward valuation rather than underlying cognitive processing mechanisms. The findings highlight the need for longitudinal studies to determine how these valuation differences emerge during development.

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• executive function