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

Abstract

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.

Temporal Dynamics of Proactive and Reactive Motor Inhibition

“…Lavallee et al (2014) observed increased delta power over posterior electrodes during proactive control, presumably reflecting activity of a posterior attentional network. Finally, our results dovetail with those of Schevernels et al (2016), who reported a higher N1 to task-relevant go-targets compared to task-irrelevant nogo-targets.…”

“…This slow negative potential with its maximum over central regions, is the most common ERP component when studying preparatory (i.e., proactive) cognitive processes. Schevernels et al (2016) reported in a cued go/nogo-study that in cued nogo- compared to cued go-trials the CNV was reduced, speaking for less employment of attentional resources. Here, we expected proactive motor control to be accompanied by increased activity in attentional networks, reflected in changes in occipital alpha, the CNV and the P1/N1-complex, as ERP correlate of early visual processing in extrastriate cortex (Hillyard and Anllo-Vento, 1998).…”

Biasing Actions by Incentive Valence in an Approach/Avoidance Task

“…In a series of studies, Guitart-Masip and colleagues found valence-action biases in an incentive Go/NoGo task, in that participants' performance was improved in trials with compatible ('natural') mappings, i.e., Go-Win, NoGo-Avoid Losing (Guitart-Masip et al, 2011Richter et al, 2014). In contrast, other recent studies manipulating incentives in Go/NoGo, Stop-signal, or approach/avoidance tasks failed to provide clear evidence for such valence-action biases (Boehler, Hopf, Stoppel, & Krebs, 2012;Schevernels, Bombeke, Krebs, & Boehler, 2016;Verbruggen & McLaren, 2016). This inconsistency probably results from paradigmatic differences.…”

“…Specifically, while the paradigm applied by colleagues (2011, 2012) contrasted win and loss incentives directly (and exclusively), more recent studies included no-incentive conditions as well. This was either done by adding no-incentive trials (Schevernels et al, 2016), by comparing win and loss trials to a no-incentive baseline in discrete groups (Hoofs et al, 2019), or by contrasting win, loss, and, no-incentive manipulations between groups (Verbruggen & McLaren, 2016). Consequentially, some of these studies did not feature a direct contrast between positive and negative valence.…”

“…Second, the above tasks differed with regard to the exact response requirements, i.e., Go vs. NoGo ( Guitart-Masip et al, 2011, Go vs. cancel a planned response (Boehler et al, 2012;Verbruggen & McLaren, 2016), and approach vs. avoid (Hoofs et al, 2019). Third, the tasks also differed in terms of valence-action signaling, with some using fixed valence-action stimuli (Guitart-Masip et al, 2011Richter et al, 2014;Schevernels et al, 2016), orthogonal valence-action mappings (Boehler et al, 2012;Hoofs et al, 2019), and/or group-based manipulations (Hoofs et al, 2019;Verbruggen & McLaren, 2016). Last, the studies differed with regard to the relevant trial events in that valence was either linked to cues (Guitart-Masip et al, 2011Richter et al, 2014;Schevernels et al, 2016) or targets (Boehler et al, 2012;Freeman, Razhas, & Aron, 2014), thereby tapping into preparatory and immediate control mechanisms, respectively (Krebs & Woldorff, 2017).…”