Example sequence of events during the study phase. Participants memorized series of words (e.g., “CAT” and “LIP”), each of which was preceded by the string “20p” written in black or the string “£2” written in green. The string served as a prestimulus cue, indicating the amount of money that would be earned if the following word was correctly identified in a recognition memory test performed at ∼15 min after the study phase. The comparisons of interest involved electrical brain activity elicited in the 2000 ms cue-word interval.