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3) the measure of motivation explained unique variance in participant performance on lexical, semantic, and recognition memory tasks
4) we propose a composite measure of motivation and emotional valence ratings that can approximate a more general ‘reward’ construct for use in future studies.

🔑Key findings:
1) the motivation ratings were highly reliable and valid
2) the motivation ratings captured aspects of word meaning distinct from other semantic dimensions, including concreteness and valence

We adopted the approach of theories distinguishing 'liking' and 'wanting' in reward processing. Given existing norms of the affective aspect of reward (e.g., emotional valence), we focused on collecting ratings for the motivation aspect for 8,601 words.

✨️Excited to share my first paper is out in Behavior Research Methods with @rjbinney.bsky.social and @pennypexman.bsky.social! We quantified the association of a word's meaning with reward, showing that it is a dimension relevant to semantic processing.
📄🔗Link: rdcu.be/eyqvn