Reward contingencies and the recalibration of task monitoring and reward systems: A high-density electrical mapping study

Abstract

Task execution almost always occurs in the context of reward-seeking or punishment-avoiding behavior. As such, ongoing task monitoring systems are influenced by reward anticipation systems. In turn, when a task has been executed either successfully or unsuccessfully, future iterations of that task will be re-titrated on the basis of the task outcome. Here, we examined the neural underpinnings of the task-monitoring and reward-evaluation systems to better understand how they govern reward seeking behavior. Twenty-three healthy adult participants performed a task where they accrued points that equated to real world value (gift cards) by responding as rapidly as possible within an allotted timeframe, while success rate was titrated online by changing the duration of the timeframe dependent on participant performance. Informative cues initiated each trial, indicating the probability of potential reward or loss (four levels from very low to very high). We manipulated feedback by first informing participants of task success/failure, after which a second feedback signal indicated actual magnitude of reward/loss. High-density EEG recordings allowed for examination of event-related potentials (ERPs) to the informative cues and in turn, to both feedback signals. Distinct ERP components associated with reward cues, task preparatory and task monitoring processes, and reward feedback processes were identified. Unsurprisingly, participants displayed increased ERP amplitudes associated with task preparatory processes following cues that predicted higher chances of reward. They also rapidly updated reward and loss prediction information dependent on task performance after the first feedback signal. Finally, upon reward receipt, initial reward probability was no longer taken into account. Rather, ERP measures suggested that only the magnitude of actual reward or loss was now processed. Reward and task monitoring processes are clearly dissociable, but interact across very fast timescales to update reward predictions as information about task success or failure is accrued. Careful delineation of these processes will be useful in future investigations in clinical groups where such processes are suspected of having gone awry.

Interests shape how adolescents pay attention: the interaction of motivation and top‐down attentional processes in biasing sensory activations to anticipated events

“…As such, the level of interest and ‘motivation’ are inextricably linked. To date, most of the studies that have considered how motivation influences cognitive processes have focused on monetary rewards, which are readily manipulable and clearly an excellent incentive under many circumstances (Small et al ., ; Smith et al ., ; Morie et al ., ). However, other more common motivating factors in daily life, such as one's level of interest in a given topic, can be equally motivating.…”

Electroencephalography reveals a selective disruption of cognitive control processes in craving cigarette smokers

“…Additionally, studies examining similar components have used a similar (or smaller) sample size (e.g. 23 subjects for the CNV (Morie, Sanctis, & Foxe, 2014); 20 subjects for the N inc (McKay, Berg, & Woldorff, 2017)). All included participants had neither a history of (or current) drug or alcohol abuse nor any diagnosis of neurological disease/ psychiatric illness.…”

An electrophysiological marker of the desire to quit in smokers

“…In response to the target stimuli, we predicted to see that the P300 component, previously observed to be insensitive to the probability of a reward in addicts (Morie et al ., ), would not be sensitive to the task conditions (purportedly bringing participants closer to or farther away from their reward of smoking), but might rather show an enhancement in the craving condition during which overall arousal may have been higher (Donohue et al ., ). In response to the standard stimuli, we expected to see a frontal component similar to a cue‐related negativity (Morie et al ., , ), with such a negative process likely having an extended duration, as has been observed in addicts in a response to substance‐related cues (Littel et al ., ) that likely induce craving (Carter & Tiffany, ). Because craving processes are in conflict with the desire to quit, we expected that this frontal component may exhibit a different pattern of activity (i.e., top‐down control) in response to craving for smokers who wished to quit as compared to those who did not wish to quit.…”