The impact of positive and negative feedback on reaction time in brain-damaged patients

Little is known about the impact of feedback on the reaction times (RTs) of brain-damaged (BD) patients. The authors therefore investigated the effect of positive and negative feedback on these patients, using a 4-choice RT t ask. Participants were 107 ED patients with different etiologies and 50 ort hopedic (OG) control patients. Patients were assigned to 3 groups in which performance-independent negative, positive, and no feedback were given. Sta tistical analysis showed that negative feedback led to significantly shorte r RTs in ED patients. Even ED patients with high depression scores were aff ected by negative feedback. In contrast, negative feedback had no impact on the RTs of the OG controls, and positive feedback had no influence on the RTs of any group. These results raise some interesting questions about moti vational processes in ED patients.