Monkeys exhibit a paradoxical decrease in performance in high-stakes scenarios

In high-stakes situations, people sometimes exhibit a frustrating phenomenon known as “choking under pressure.” Usually, we perform better when the potential payoff is larger. However, once potential rewards get too high, performance paradoxically decreases—we “choke.” Why do we choke under pressure? An animal model of choking would facilitate the investigation of its neural basis. However, it could be that choking is a uniquely human occurrence. To determine whether animals also choke, we trained three rhesus monkeys to perform a difficult reaching task in which they knew in advance the amount of reward to be given upon successful completion. Like humans, monkeys performed worse when potential rewards were exceptionally valuable. Failures that occurred at the highest level of reward were due to overly cautious reaching, in line with the psychological theory that explicit monitoring of behavior leads to choking. Our results demonstrate that choking under pressure is not unique to humans, and thus, its neural basis might be conserved across species.