The effect of incentives in driving simulator studies

Abstract

In driving experiments, incentives are used to establish a motivation for task performances. Usually, monetary rewards are used to achieve this. We focus on the question whether other rewards than money (an anoymous donation and social comparison) can achieve equal task performance results compared to monetary rewards. In a simulator experiment (n = 20) we could show that participants perform equal task performance among all conditions (monetary rewards, anonymous donation, comparative highscore) except the baseline (a score with no further meaning). This leads to the assumption that besides monetary rewards, other incentives may lead to the same performance in simulator studies.