Regulating the expectation of reward via cognitive strategies.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Delgado MR
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3077128 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Regulating the expectation of reward via cognitive strategies.
Delgado Mauricio R MR Gillis M Meredith MM Phelps Elizabeth A EA
Nature neuroscience 20080629 8
Previous emotion regulation research has been successful in altering aversive emotional reactions. It is unclear, however, whether such strategies can also efficiently regulate expectations of reward arising from conditioned stimuli, which can at times be maladaptive (for example, drug cravings). Using a monetary reward-conditioning procedure with cognitive strategies, we observed attenuation in both the physiological (skin conductance) and neural correlates (striatum) of reward expectation as p ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:Do dopaminergic reward structures represent the expected utility of information similarly to a reward? Optimal experimental design models from Bayesian decision theory and statistics have proposed a theoretical framework for quantifying the expected value of information that might result from a query. In particular, this formulation quantifies the value of information before the answer to that query is known, in situations where payoffs are unknown and the goal is purely epistemic: That is, to increase knowledge about the state of the world. Whether and how such a theoretical quantity is represented in the brain is unknown. Here we use an event-related functional MRI (fMRI) task design to disentangle information expectation, information revelation and categorization outcome anticipation, and response-contingent reward processing in a visual probabilistic categorization task. We identify a neural signature corresponding to the expectation of information, involving the left lateral ventral striatum. Moreover, we show a temporal dissociation in the activation of different reward-related regions, including the nucleus accumbens, medial prefrontal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex, during information expectation versus reward-related processing.
| S-EPMC7334472 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundInhibitory control, a key modulatory component of cognition guiding strategy and behaviour, can be affected by diverse contingencies. We explore here the effect of expectation of reward over behavioural adjustment in a Stop Signal Task modulated by reward. We hypothesize that cognitive control is modulated by different expectation of the reward.MethodsParticipants were allocated to two groups differing in their degree of knowledge in what to expect from rewards. Expected Specific Reward participants (N = 21) were informed of the different monetary feedbacks they would receive after each successful inhibition. Unexpected Reward participants (N = 24) were only told that they would receive monetary reward after correct inhibitory trials, but not the amounts or differences.ResultsOur results confirmed previous observations demonstrating a "kick-start effect" where a high reward feedback at the beginning of the task increases response inhibition. The Expected Specific Reward condition seems also to improve inhibitory control -as measured by the stop signal reaction time (SSRT)-, compared to the Unexpected Reward group.ConclusionsKnowledge of reward magnitudes seems to play a role in cognitive control irrespective of feedback magnitude. The manipulation of reward expectation appears to trigger different strategies for cognitive control, inducing a bottom-up effect of external cues, or a top-down effect given by the anticipation of incoming rewards. This is an early exploration to unearth possible higher order modulators - expectation and motivation- of cognitive control. This approach aims to gain insight into diverse psychopathological conditions related to impulsivity and altered reward systems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), personality disorders, substance abuse, pathological gambling and cognitive aspects of Parkinson Disease.
| S-EPMC6706938 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The human brain contains approximately 60 billion cerebellar granule cells, which outnumber all other brain neurons combined. Classical theories posit that a large, diverse population of granule cells allows for highly detailed representations of sensorimotor context, enabling downstream Purkinje cells to sense fine contextual changes. Although evidence suggests a role for the cerebellum in cognition, granule cells are known to encode only sensory and motor context. Here, using two-photon calcium imaging in behaving mice, we show that granule cells convey information about the expectation of reward. Mice initiated voluntary forelimb movements for delayed sugar-water reward. Some granule cells responded preferentially to reward or reward omission, whereas others selectively encoded reward anticipation. Reward responses were not restricted to forelimb movement, as a Pavlovian task evoked similar responses. Compared to predictable rewards, unexpected rewards elicited markedly different granule cell activity despite identical stimuli and licking responses. In both tasks, reward signals were widespread throughout multiple cerebellar lobules. Tracking the same granule cells over several days of learning revealed that cells with reward-anticipating responses emerged from those that responded at the start of learning to reward delivery, whereas reward-omission responses grew stronger as learning progressed. The discovery of predictive, non-sensorimotor encoding in granule cells is a major departure from the current understanding of these neurons and markedly enriches the contextual information available to postsynaptic Purkinje cells, with important implications for cognitive processing in the cerebellum.
| S-EPMC5532014 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Academic dishonesty has been and continues to be a major problem in America's schools and universities. Such dishonesty is especially important in high schools, where grades earned directly impact the academic careers of students for many years to come. The rising pressure to get the best grades in school, get into the best college, and land the best paying job is a cycle that has made academic dishonesty increase exponentially. Thus, finding the widespread roots of cheating is more important now than ever. In this study, we focus on how societal norms and interactions with peers influence lying about scores in order to obtain a benefit in a high school population. We show that (1) the societal norms that go hand in hand with test-taking in school, as administered by a teacher, significantly dampen small-scale dishonesty, perhaps suggesting that context-dependent rewards offset cheating; (2) providing reminders of societal norms via pre-reported average scores leads to more truthful self-reporting of honesty; (3) the matrix search task was shown to not depend on class difficulty, confirming its effectiveness as an appropriate method for this study; (4) males seem to cheat more than females; and (5) teenagers are more dishonest earlier in the day. We suggest that students understand that cheating is wrong, an idea backed up by the literature, and that an environment which clearly does not condone dishonesty helps dampen widespread cheating in certain instances. This dampening effect seems to be dependent on the reward that students thought they would get for exaggerating their performance.
| S-EPMC5657619 | biostudies-other
Project description:The prospect of reward changes how we think and behave. We investigated how this occurs in the brain using a novel continuous performance task in which fluctuating reward expectations biased cognitive processes between competing spatial and verbal tasks. Critically, effects of reward expectancy could be distinguished from induced changes in task-related networks. Behavioral data confirm specific bias toward a reward-relevant modality. Increased reward expectation improves reaction time and accuracy in the relevant dimension while reducing sensitivity to modulations of stimuli characteristics in the irrelevant dimension. Analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data shows that the proximity to reward over successive trials is associated with increased activity of the medial frontal cortex regardless of the modality. However, there are modality-specific changes in brain activity in the lateral frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex. Analysis of effective connectivity suggests that reward expectancy enhances coupling in both early visual pathways and within the prefrontal cortex. These distributed changes in task-related cortical networks arise from subjects' representations of future events and likelihood of reward.
| S-EPMC3886193 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Previous studies have reported the failure of cognitive emotion regulation (CER), especially in regulating unpleasant emotions under stress. The underlying reason for this failure was the application of CER depends heavily on the executive function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), but this function can be impaired by stress-related neuroendocrine hormones. This observation highlights the necessity of developing self-regulatory strategies that require less top-down cognitive control. Based on traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine, which examine how different types of emotions promote or counteract one another, we have developed a novel emotion regulation strategy whereby one emotion is used to alter another. For example, our previous experiment showed that sadness induction (after watching a sad film) could reduce aggressive behavior associated with anger [i.e., "sadness counteracts anger" (SCA)] (Zhan et al., 2015). Relative to the CER strategy requiring someone to think about certain cognitive reappraisals to reinterpret the meaning of an unpleasant situation, watching a film or listening to music and experiencing the emotion contained therein seemingly requires less cognitive effort and control; therefore, this SCA strategy may be an alternative strategy that compensates for the limitations of cognitive regulation strategies, especially in stressful situations. The present study was designed to directly compare the effects of the CER and SCA strategy in regulating anger and anger-related aggression in stressful and non-stressful conditions. Participants' subjective feeling of anger, anger-related aggressive behavior, skin conductance, and salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase levels were measured. Our findings revealed that acute stress impaired one's ability to use CR to control angry responses provoked by others, whereas stress did not influence the efficiency of the SCA strategy. Compared with sadness or neutral emotion induction, CER induction was found to reduce the level of subjective anger more, but this difference only existed in non-stressful conditions. By contrast, irrespective of stress, the levels of aggressive behavior and related skin conductance after sadness induction were both significantly lower than those after CER induction or neutral emotion induction, thus suggesting the immunity of the regulatory effect of SCA strategy to the stress factor.
| S-EPMC5557741 | biostudies-other
Project description:Neural activity in visual area V4 is enhanced when attention is directed into neuronal receptive fields. However, the source of this enhancement is unclear, as most physiological studies have manipulated attention by changing the absolute reward associated with a particular location as well as its value relative to other locations. We trained monkeys to discriminate the orientation of two stimuli presented simultaneously in different hemifields while we independently varied the reward magnitude associated with correct discrimination at each location. Behavioral measures of attention were controlled by the relative value of each location. By contrast, neurons in V4 were consistently modulated by absolute reward value, exhibiting increased activity, increased gamma-band power and decreased trial-to-trial variability whenever receptive field locations were associated with large rewards. These data challenge the notion that the perceptual benefits of spatial attention rely on increased signal-to-noise in V4. Instead, these benefits likely derive from downstream selection mechanisms.
| S-EPMC4624579 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Computational models of reward processing suggest that foregone or fictive outcomes serve as important information sources for learning and augment those generated by experienced rewards (e.g. reward prediction errors). An outstanding question is how these learning signals interact with top-down cognitive influences, such as cognitive reappraisal strategies. Using a sequential investment task and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that the reappraisal strategy selectively attenuates the influence of fictive, but not reward prediction error signals on investment behavior; such behavioral effect is accompanied by changes in neural activity and connectivity in the anterior insular cortex, a brain region thought to integrate subjective feelings with high-order cognition. Furthermore, individuals differ in the extent to which their behaviors are driven by fictive errors versus reward prediction errors, and the reappraisal strategy interacts with such individual differences; a finding also accompanied by distinct underlying neural mechanisms. These findings suggest that the variable interaction of cognitive strategies with two important classes of computational learning signals (fictive, reward prediction error) represent one contributing substrate for the variable capacity of individuals to control their behavior based on foregone rewards. These findings also expose important possibilities for understanding the lack of control in addiction based on possibly foregone rewarding outcomes.
| S-EPMC4105325 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We investigated the effect of reward expectation on the processing of emotional words in two experiments using event-related potentials (ERPs). A cue indicating the reward condition of each trial (incentive vs non-incentive) was followed by the presentation of a negative or neutral word, the target. Participants were asked to discriminate the emotional content of the target word in Experiment 1 and to discriminate the color of the target word in Experiment 2, rendering the emotionality of the target word task-relevant in Experiment 1, but task-irrelevant in Experiment 2. The negative bias effect, in terms of the amplitude difference between ERPs for negative and neutral targets, was modulated by the task-set. In Experiment 1, P31 and early posterior negativity revealed a larger negative bias effect in the incentive condition than that in the non-incentive condition. However, in Experiment 2, P31 revealed a diminished negative bias effect in the incentive condition compared with that in the non-incentive condition. These results indicate that reward expectation improves top-down attentional concentration to task-relevant information, with enhanced sensitivity to the emotional content of target words when emotionality is task-relevant, but with reduced differential brain responses to emotional words when their content is task-irrelevant.
| S-EPMC4733331 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Positive mood broadens attention and builds additional mental resources. However, its effect on performance monitoring and reward prediction errors remain unclear. To examine this issue, we used a standard mood induction procedure (based on guided imagery) and asked 45 participants to complete a gambling task suited to study reward prediction errors by means of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and mid-frontal theta band power. Results showed a larger FRN for negative feedback as well as a lack of reward expectation modulation for positive feedback at the theta level with positive mood, relative to a neutral mood condition. A control analysis showed that this latter result could not be explained by the mere superposition of the event-related brain potential component on the theta oscillations. Moreover, these neurophysiological effects were evidenced in the absence of impairments at the behavioral level or increase in autonomic arousal with positive mood, suggesting that this mood state reliably altered brain mechanisms of reward prediction errors during performance monitoring. We interpret these new results as reflecting a genuine mood congruency effect, whereby reward is anticipated as the default outcome with positive mood and therefore processed as unsurprising (even when it is unlikely), while negative feedback is perceived as unexpected.
| S-EPMC5460044 | biostudies-literature