Time Pressure Modulates the Effects of Reward and Punishment on Working Memory for Non-Semantic Characters: Evidence from fMRI

Anticipation of reward and punishment modulates working memory performance by influencing motivational states and attentional resource allocation, thereby affecting encoding, maintenance, and retrieval processes. Although prior studies have demonstrated that reward- and punishment-related cues enhance task engagement, it remains unclear whether such motivational effects vary as a function of time pressure and how they are instantiated at the neural level. To address these questions, the present study employed an encoding–test working memory task with non-semantic characters as stimuli, manipulated time pressure and reward/punishment conditions, and combined behavioral measures with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural mechanisms underlying the effects of time pressure and reward/punishment anticipation on working memory.