When people "choke under pressure," it's often at times when success could result in a big payoff — maybe they're an athlete at a championship match or an actor performing for a renowned director. Now, a study in monkeys could help reveal why: The prospect of a large reward can interfere with brain signals that prepare us for a given task, leading to underperformance.
The study, published in the journal Neuron Sept. 12, involved three monkeys completing tasks to get a reward — in this case, water to drink. The primates performed their best when the prize at stake was a medium to large volume of water. But when they could win an unusually large "jackpot," they underperformed, or choked under pressure.
