Materials and Procedure

The materials were identical to those used in Experiment 1 and 2 and the procedure was identical to that of Experiment 1 with the following exceptions: an additional between-subject factor Experiment (reward vs. punishment experiment) was included, that is in half of the experiments negative incentive cues (indicating potential loss of money) were used instead of cues of positive incentives, study and test consisted of approximately 30% fewer trials which implied the possibility of somewhat stricter stimuli criteria and the provision of a longer response time window at test (as the fast succession of trials and relatively small response time window was criticized before by the participants in Experiment 1 and 2).

320 pictures and words that were a subset of those items used in Experiment 1 and 2 were used in each of the four experiments. The computer screens used in China and Germany were similar in size. With regard to the German stimuli, the pictures had a mean name agreement of 89% (min. > 50%; German raters; word length did not exceed 11 characters (mean = 6). For the Chinese stimulus lists, the same pictures as for the German lists were used

with a mean name agreement of 83% (min. > 50%; Taiwanese raters). To ensure the equivalence of the words referring to the object pictures in both countries, a “back-translation” was implemented: (1) the existing data set of the object words in Mandarin spoken in Taiwan were translated and adapted into Mandarin spoken in Mainland China by two native Chinese-speakers; and (2) the translated version of the word list was back translated into English by a native Chinese-speaker and compared with the original English word list of the data base (Szekely et al., 2004) to determine the similarities between the two versions. Word length did not exceed 4 characters (mean = 2).

Two 120-item study lists were formed for each participant by randomly intermixing 60 pictures and 60 (non-corresponding) words. The test list consisted of 320 items and was divided into four blocks of 80 items each. Each test block was composed of 40 target words, 20 non-target words and 20 new words.

Participants took again part in two sessions, a study phase on the first day and a test phase on the following day (range: 24 - 25 hours after study). Prior to the study and test phase, subjects were given written and oral task instructions and completed a short practice run until they became familiar with the experimental task. At the end of the practice run at test, the amount of gained money was presented on the screen. Items presented in the practice run were not used during the experimental sessions.

Study trials consisted of the presentation of a fixation character (“*”) for 500 ms which was followed in the reward experiments by either a high (“+ + +”) or a low (“+”) reward cue for 300 ms or in the punishment experiments by either a high - -”) or a low

(“-”) punishment cue. The remaining cue-interval was filled with a fixation character for 500 ms.

Then, either a picture or a word appeared on the screen for 1000 ms, followed by a fixation character (“*”) for 500 ms. After that, the word “size?” was presented for 2000 ms during which time interval the participant responded. Next, the screen was blanked for 500 ms before the next trial began. Whenever the question “size?” appeared on the screen, participants had, exactly as in Experiment 1 and 2, to decide whether the real life size of the shown object (depicted as a picture or a word) would be larger or smaller than the size of the monitor and to press one of the two response keys as quick and accurate as possible. Each value cue preceding an item indicated the money participants would gain or avoid losing in case of correct recognition of the item in the later memory test. Thus, participants in the reward experiment were informed that they would be rewarded (either with 0.50 / 0.05€ in Germany or with 2 / 0.2¥ in China) for each correctly recognized target item in the memory test the following day. The participants of the punishment experiment were penalized (either with –

0.50 / – 0.05€ in Germany or with -2 / -0.2¥ in China) for each forgotten target item in the later memory test. Participants in the reward experiments started with 0€/0¥, whereas participants in the punishment experiments were given 44€ (Germany) or 176¥ (China). The choice for these sums of money was based on the idea to use (i) identical amounts in Germany compared to those previously used in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 for the purposes of comparison and to use (ii) amounts in China that were of similar value compared to the amounts in Germany, that is care has been taken to choose amounts with which similar products would be buyable in Germany (with 0.50€) and in China (with 2¥ i.e. in Beijing).

In both types of experiments participants were explicitly encouraged to try to earn or to keep as much money as possible and to use the cues in order to prepare themselves memorizing the upcoming study items. In between the two study lists a short rest was given and after the whole study phase, subjects were asked to fill out the BIS/BAS personality questionnaire (Carver & White, 1994, described below), either as a German (Strobel, Beauducel, Debener, & Brocke, 2001) or a Chinese Version (Loxton et al., 2008) and a questionnaire on demographic information.

Test trials began with the presentation of a fixation character for 500 ms, after which a test word was presented for 400 ms. This interval was followed by the presentation of a fixation character for 1200 ms and the trial ended with a feedback cue presented for 300 ms (red, frowning ‘smiley’ for incorrect or too slow response; green ‘smiley’ for correct response).

Participants were told that they would be rewarded or could avoid loss in case of correctly recognizing the item in the later memory test. They were also shown the money in cash that they could gain or avoid losing by performing the task successfully. After each of the four test blocks, general performance (in %) was shown and a brief rest interval was provided. At the end of the test, the cumulative total of the gained amount of money was presented on the screen (either in € or in ¥).

Additionally, participants were asked to fill out the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Approach Activation Scales (BIS/BAS, Carver & White, 1994) before the start of the study phase on the first day. For the German participants a German Version of the questionnaire (Strobel et al., 2001) and for the Chinese a Chinese Version (Loxton et al., 2008) was used.

Both versions equally comprised 24 items that each belonged either to the BIS or to one of the three related BAS subscales. Per item an answer on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = “I strongly agree”; 4 = “I strongly disagree”) was asked to be given.