Biasing actions by incentive valence in an approach/avoidance task

The present study investigates interactions between incentive valence and action, which mirror wellknown valence-action biases in the emotional domain. In three joystick experiments, incentive valence (win/loss) and action type (approach/avoid) were signaled by distinct orthogonal stimulus features. By combining several design aspects, i.e., the use of bi-directional joystick movements, the inclusion of no-incentive baseline trials, and cue-locked versus target-locked valence and action signals, we tried to bridge between paradigms used in the emotional and motivational domain, and to understand previous, partly inconsistent results. In the first task variant (Experiment 1), we observed performance benefits for compatible mappings (win-approach; loss-avoid) relative to incompatible ones (loss-approach; win-avoid) when valence and action signals were target-locked, consistent with a fairly automatic response activation that can benefit or impair task performance. In contrast, cue-locked valence signals led to response facilitation (relative to a no-incentive baseline) more or less independent of actual valence (win/loss) and action type (approach/avoid), which is reminiscent of general facilitation effects of incentive cues across diverse cognitive tasks. Slight design variations did not change this main result pattern, indicating that it was neither driven by the close proximity between target and performance feedback (Experiment 2), nor by mere temporal coincidence of valence and action signals (Experiment 3), but rather by differences between preparatory (cued) and immediate (non-cued) effects of incentive valence. The present study provides novel insights regarding the nature of valence-action biases in the motivational domain and helps to integrate previous, partly inconsistent findings across domain

Motivational context for response inhibition influences proactive involvement of attention

Motoric inhibition is ingrained in human cognition and implicated in pervasive neurological diseases and disorders. The present electroencephalographic (EEG) study investigated proactive motivational adjustments in attention during response inhibition. We compared go-trial data from a stop-signal task, in which infrequently presented stop-signals required response cancellation without extrinsic incentives ("standard-stop"), to data where a monetary reward was posted on some stop-signals ("rewarded-stop"). A novel EEG analysis was used to directly model the covariation between response time and the attention-related N1 component. A positive relationship between response time and N1 amplitudes was found in the standard-stop context, but not in the rewarded-stop context. Simultaneously, average go-trial N1 amplitudes were larger in the rewarded-stop context. This suggests that down-regulation of go-signal-directed attention is dynamically adjusted in the standard-stop trials, but is overridden by a more generalized increase in attention in reward-motivated trials. Further, a diffusion process model indicated that behavior between contexts was the result of partially opposing evidence accumulation processes. Together these analyses suggest that response inhibition relies on dynamic and flexible proactive adjustments of low-level processes and that contextual changes can alter their interplay. This could prove to have ramifications for clinical disorders involving deficient response inhibition and impulsivity

Within-trial effects of stimulus-reward associations

While a globally energizing influence of motivation has long been appreciated in psychological research, a series of more recent studies has described motivational influences on specific cognitive operations ranging from visual attention, to cognitive control, to memory formation. In the majority of these studies, a cue predicts the potential to win money in a subsequent task, thus allowing for modulations of proactive task preparation. Here we describe some recent studies using tasks that communicate reward availability without such cues by directly associating specific task features with reward. Despite abolishing the cue-based preparation phase, these studies show similar performance benefits. Given the clear difference in temporal structure, a central question is how these behavioral effects are brought about, and in particular whether control processes can rapidly be enhanced reactively. We present some evidence in favor of this notion. Although additional influences, for example sensory prioritization of reward-related features, could contribute to the reward-related performance benefits, those benefits seem to strongly rely on enhancements of control processes during task execution. Still, for a better mechanistic understanding of reward benefits in these two principal paradigms (cues vs. no cues), more work is needed that directly compares the underlying processes. We anticipate that reward benefits can be brought about in a very flexible fashion depending on the exact nature of the reward manipulation and task, and that a better understanding of these processes will not only be relevant for basic motivation research, but that it can also be valuable for educational and psychopathological contexts

Preparing for (valenced) action: the role of differential effort in the orthogonalized go/no-go task

Associating reward to task performance has been shown to benefit scores of cognitive functions. Importantly, this typically entails associating reward to the execution of a response, hence intertwining action-related processes with motivational ones. However, recently, preparatory action requirements (go/no-go) and outcome valence (reward/punishment) were elegantly separated using a cued orthogonalized go/no-go task. Functional magnetic resonance imaging results from this task showed that typical areas of the “reward network,” like the dopaminergic midbrain and the striatum, predominantly encode action rather than valence, displaying enhanced activity when preparing for action (go) compared to inaction (no-go). In the current study, we used ERPs to probe for differences in preparatory state related to cognitive effort in this task, which has similarly been linked to reward-network activity. Importantly, the contingent negative variation, which is linked to effortful cognitive preparation processes during cue-target intervals, was clearly observed in go trials but not in no-go trials. Moreover, target-locked ERP results (N1 and P3) suggested that attention to the target was enhanced when an action had to be performed (go trials), and typical inhibition-related ERP components were not observed in no-go trials, suggesting a lack of active response inhibition. Finally, feedback-related P3 results could suggest that correct feedback was valued more in motivated go trials, again implying that more effort was required to correctly perform the task. Together, these results indicate that the anticipation of action compared to inaction simultaneously entails differences in mental effort, highlighting the need for further dissociation of these concepts

The congruency sequence effect 3.0: a critical test of conflict adaptation

Over the last two decades, the congruency sequence effect (CSE) -the finding of a reduced congruency effect following incongruent trials in conflict tasks- has played a central role in advancing research on cognitive control. According to the influential conflict-monitoring account, the CSE reflects adjustments in selective attention that enhance task focus when needed, often termed conflict adaptation. However, this dominant interpretation of the CSE has been called into question by several alternative accounts that stress the role of episodic memory processes: feature binding and (stimulus-response) contingency learning. To evaluate the notion of conflict adaptation in accounting for the CSE, we construed versions of three widely used experimental paradigms (the colour-word Stroop, picture-word Stroop and flanker task) that effectively control for feature binding and contingency learning. Results revealed that a CSE can emerge in all three tasks. This strongly suggests a contribution of attentional control to the CSE and highlights the potential of these unprecedentedly clean paradigms for further examining cognitive control

Object-based selection of irrelevant features is not confined to the attended object

Attention to one feature of an object can bias the processing of unattended features of that object. Here we demonstrate with ERPs in visual search that this object-based bias for an irrelevant feature also appears in an unattended object when it shares that feature with the target object. Specifically, we show that the ERP response elicited by a distractor object in one visual field is modulated as a function of whether a task-irrelevant color of that distractor is also present in the target object that is presented in the opposite visual field. Importantly, we find this modulation to arise with a delay of approximately 80 msec relative to the N2pc-a component of the ERP response that reflects the focusing of attention onto the target. In a second experiment, we demonstrate that this modulation reflects enhanced neural processing in the unattended object. These observations together facilitate the surprising conclusion that the object-based selection of irrelevant features is spatially global even after attention has selected the target object

Paying attention to working memory: similarities in the spatial distribution of attention in mental and physical space

Selective attention is not limited to information that is physically present in the external world, but can also operate on mental representations in the internal world. However, it is not known whether mechanisms of attentional selection in mental space operate in a similar fashion as in physical space. We studied the spatial distribution of attention for items in physical and in mental space by comparing how successfully distracters were rejected at varying distances from the attended location. The results indicate very similar distribution characteristics of spatial attention in physical and mental space. Specifically, we found that performance monotonically improved with increasing distracter distance relative to the attended location suggesting that distracter confusability is particularly pronounced for nearby distracters relative to further away distracters. The present findings suggest that mental representations preserve their spatial configuration in working memory, and that similar mechanistic principles underlie selective attention in physical and mental space

Overlapping neural systems represent cognitive effort and reward anticipation

Anticipating a potential benefit and how difficult it will be to obtain it are valuable skills in a constantly changing environment. In the human brain, the anticipation of reward is encoded by the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) and Striatum. Naturally, potential rewards have an incentive quality, resulting in a motivational effect improving performance. Recently it has been proposed that an upcoming task requiring effort induces a similar anticipation mechanism as reward, relying on the same cortico-limbic network. However, this overlapping anticipatory activity for reward and effort has only been investigated in a perceptual task. Whether this generalizes to high-level cognitive tasks remains to be investigated. To this end, an fMRI experiment was designed to investigate anticipation of reward and effort in cognitive tasks. A mental arithmetic task was implemented, manipulating effort (difficulty), reward, and delay in reward delivery to control for temporal confounds. The goal was to test for the motivational effect induced by the expectation of bigger reward and higher effort. The results showed that the activation elicited by an upcoming difficult task overlapped with higher reward prospect in the ACC and in the striatum, thus highlighting a pivotal role of this circuit in sustaining motivated behavior

Rapid modulation of sensory processing induced by stimulus conflict

Humans are constantly confronted with environmental stimuli that conflict with task goals and can interfere with successful behavior. Prevailing theories propose the existence of cognitive control mechanisms that can suppress the processing of conflicting input and enhance that of the relevant input. However, the temporal cascade of brain processes invoked in response to conflicting stimuli remains poorly understood. By examining evoked electrical brain responses in a novel, hemifield-specific, visual-flanker task, we demonstrate that task-irrelevant conflicting stimulus input is quickly detected in higher level executive regions while simultaneously inducing rapid, recurrent modulation of sensory processing in the visual cortex. Importantly, however, both of these effects are larger for individuals with greater incongruency-related RT slowing. The combination of neural activation patterns and behavioral interference effects suggest that this initial sensory modulation induced by conflicting stimulus inputs reflects performance-degrading attentional distraction because of their incompatibility rather than any rapid task-enhancing cognitive control mechanisms. The present findings thus provide neural evidence for a model in which attentional distraction is the key initial trigger for the temporal cascade of processes by which the human brain responds to conflicting stimulus input in the environment