Reward expectation regulates brain responses to task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: ERP evidence

Height matters: An EEG study of the relative height disadvantage promoting third-party punishment

The study employed event-related potential (ERP), time-frequency analysis, and functional connectivity to comprehensively explore the influence of male's relative height on third-party punishment (TPP) and its underlying neural mechanism. The results found that punishment rate and more transfer amount are significantly greater when the height of the third-party is lower than that of the recipient, suggesting that male's height disadvantage promotes TPP. Neural results found that the height disadvantage induced a smaller N1. The height disadvantage also evoked greater P300 amplitude, more theta power, and more alpha power. Furthermore, a significantly stronger wPLI between the rTPJ and the posterior parietal and a significantly stronger wPLI between the DLPFC and the posterior parietal were observed when third-party was at the height disadvantage. These results imply that the height disadvantage causes negative emotions and affects the fairness consideration in the early processing stage; The third-party evaluates the blame of violators and makes an appropriate punishment decision later. Our findings indicate that anger and reputation concern caused by height disadvantage promote TPP. The current study holds significance as it underscores the psychological importance of height in males, broadens the perspective on factors influencing TPP, validates the promoting effect of personal disadvantages on prosocial behavior, enriches our understanding of indirect reciprocity theory, and extends the application of the evolution theory of Napoleon complex.

Pathways to adolescent social anxiety: Testing interactions between neural social reward function and perceived social threat in daily life

Recent theories suggest that for youth highly sensitive to incentives, perceiving more social threat may contribute to social anxiety (SA) symptoms. In 129 girls (ages 11-13) oversampled for shy/fearful temperament, we thus examined how interactions between neural responses to social reward (vs. neutral) cues (measured during anticipation of peer feedback) and perceived social threat in daily peer interactions (measured using ecological momentary assessment) predict SA symptoms two years later. No significant interactions emerged when neural reward function was modeled as a latent factor. Secondary analyses showed that higher perceived social threat was associated with more severe SA symptoms two years later only for girls with higher basolateral amygdala (BLA) activation to social reward cues at baseline. Interaction effects were specific to BLA activation to social reward (not threat) cues, though a main effect of BLA activation to social threat (vs. neutral) cues on SA emerged. Unexpectedly, interactions between social threat and BLA activation to social reward cues also predicted generalized anxiety and depression symptoms two years later, suggesting possible transdiagnostic risk pathways. Perceiving high social threat may be particularly detrimental for youth highly sensitive to reward incentives, potentially due to mediating reward learning processes, though this remains to be tested.

Measurement of event-related potentials from electroencephalography to evaluate emotional processing in Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

The present systematic review and meta-analysis intended to: 1) determine the extent of abnormalities in emotional processing linked to emotional event-related potentials (ERPs) in Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) and 2) integrate data from similar emotional tasks into a meta-analysis to clearly demonstrate the scientific and clinical value of measuring emotional ERPs by electroencephalography (EEG) in FMS.

METHODS

A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing emotional processing indicated by ERPs in FMS patients and healthy controls was conducted. Fifteen articles were included in the systematic review after applying the eligibility criteria.

RESULTS

Nine articles demonstrated disturbances in emotional processing in FMS. These emotional disturbances were distributed over the whole range of ERP latencies, mainly over central, parietal, temporal and occipital areas. Despite of this, quantitative analysis revealed only significant differences in N250 and LPP/LPC between FMS patients and healthy controls, with smaller LPP/LPC and greater N250 seen in FMS.

DISCUSSION

N250 and LPP/LPC seem to be the ERPs with the greatest potential to determine emotional alterations in FMS. These ERPs are related to complex cognitive processes such as decoding features relevant to affect recognition (N250) as well differentiation between emotions, persistent engagement, conflict resolution or evaluation of emotional intensity (LPC/LPP). However, differences in task setup had an important impact on the variation of ERP outcomes. Systematization of protocols and tasks is indispensable for future studies.

Reward delays quitting in visual search

Reward motivates goal-directed behaviors, leading to faster reaction time (RT) and lower error rate in searching for a target in the reward condition than in the no-reward condition in target-discrimination tasks. However, it is unclear how reward influences target detection in which participants are required to judge whether a predesignated target is present or absent. Here, we asked participants to complete a target-detection search task in which the color of the search array indicated the reward availability of the current trial. Correct and faster (than a baseline) responses would be rewarded if the search array had the reward-related color. In Experiments 1A and 1B, the target was presented in 50% of the trials. Experiment 1B had the same design as Experiment 1A, except that different baselines were set for the target-present and target-absent conditions. In Experiment 2, the proportion of target presence was manipulated to be high (80%), moderate (50%), or low (20%) in different blocks of stimuli. Results showed that, across all the experiments, participants responded faster and made fewer errors in the reward than in the no-reward condition when the target was present. However, this facilitatory effect was reversed when the target was absent, showcasing a reward-induced interference. The signal detection analysis suggested that reward biased the report criterion to the "yes" response. These findings demonstrate that the impact of reward on goal-directed behavior can be detrimental and reward prolongs the search process by rendering participants reluctant to say "no" in visual search termination.

Comparing monetary gain and loss in the monetary incentive delay task: EEG evidence

What is more effective to guide behavior: The desire to gain or the fear to lose? Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have yielded inconsistent answers. In a systematic exploration of the valence and magnitude parameters in monetary gain and loss processing, we used time-domain and time-frequency-domain analyses to uncover the underlying neural processes. A group of 24 participants performed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in which cue-induced anticipation of a high or low magnitude of gain or loss was manipulated trial-wise. Behaviorally, the anticipation of both gain and loss expedited responses, with gain anticipation producing greater facilitation than loss anticipation. Analyses of cue-locked P2 and P3 components revealed the significant valence main effect and valence × magnitude interaction: amplitude differences between high and low incentive magnitudes were larger with gain vs. loss cues. However, the contingent negative variation component was sensitive to incentive magnitude but did not vary with incentive valence. In the feedback phase, the RewP component exhibited reversed patterns for gain and loss trials. Time-frequency analyses revealed a large increase in delta/theta-ERS oscillatory activity in high- vs. low-magnitude conditions and a large decrease of alpha-ERD oscillatory activity in gain vs. loss conditions in the anticipation stage. In the consumption stage, delta/theta-ERS turned out stronger for negative than positive feedback, especially in the gain condition. Overall, our study provides new evidence for the neural oscillatory features of monetary gain and loss processing in the MID task, suggesting that participants invested more attention under gain and high-magnitude conditions vs. loss and low-magnitude conditions.

Negative emotion reduces the discriminability of reward outcomes in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Reward and emotion are tightly intertwined, so there is a growing interest in mapping their interactions. However, our knowledge of these interactions in the human brain, especially during the consummatory phase of reward is limited. To address this critical gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to investigate the effects of negative emotion on reward outcome processing. We employed a novel design where emotional valence (negative or neutral) indicated the type of outcome (reward or no-reward) in a choice task. We focused our functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis on the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), ventral striatum and amygdala, which were frequently implicated in reward outcome processing. In these regions of interest, we performed multi-voxel pattern analysis to specifically probe how negative emotion modulates reward outcome processing. In vmPFC, using decoding analysis, we found evidence consistent with the reduced discriminability of multi-variate activity patterns of reward vs no-reward outcomes when signaled by a negative relative to a neutral image, suggesting an emotional modulation of reward processing along the plausible common value/valence dimension. These findings advance our limited understanding of the basic brain mechanisms underlying the influence of negative emotion on consummatory reward processing, with potential implications for mental disorders, particularly anxiety and depression.

Reward advantage over punishment for incentivizing visual working memory

The prospects of gaining reward and avoiding punishment widely influence human behavior. Despite of numerous attempts to investigate the influence of motivational signals on working memory (WM), whether the valence and the magnitude of motivational signals interactively influence WM performance remains unclear. To investigate this, the present study used a free-recall working memory task with EEG recording to compare the effect of incentive valence (reward or punishment), as well as the magnitude of incentives on visual WM. Behavioral results revealed that the presence of incentive signals improved WM precision when compared with no-incentive condition, and compared with punishing cues, rewarding cues led to greater facilitation in WM precision, as well as confidence ratings afterward. Moreover, event related potential (ERP) results suggested that compared with punishment, reward led to an earlier latency of late positive component (LPC), a larger amplitude of contingent negative variation (CNV) during the expectation period, and a larger P300 amplitude during the sample and delay periods. Furthermore, reward advantage over punishment in behavioral and neural results were correlated, such that individuals with larger CNV difference between reward and punishment conditions also report greater distinction in confidence ratings between the two conditions. In sum, our results demonstrate what and how rewarding cues cause more beneficial effects than punishing cues when incentivizing visual WM.

Reward association impairs recognition of incidentally encoded negative information: Electrophysiological evidence

Previous studies investigating the effect of reward on emotional episodic memory have produced inconsistent results. In this study, through two experiments using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the effect of reward association on the encoding and retrieval of incidentally encoded emotional information, and examined whether this effect changes over time. Participants in the two experiments were asked to discriminate the emotional valence of color images under reward or no-reward condition and incidentally encode them. Immediate (in Experiment 1) or 24-hour delayed (in Experiment 2) recognition after encoding was tested. In Experiments 1 and 2, reward (relative to no-reward) significantly improved the recognition of positive and neutral items, but significantly reduced the recognition of negative items. During encoding, the significant ERP reward effects (significantly more positive ERP amplitude for rewarded items than for non-rewarded ones) for positive and neutral images were widely distributed from 200 to 1500 ms after image onset, while those for negative stimuli occurred mainly from 200 to 500 ms. During retrieval, the significant ERP reward effects for positive and neutral items occurred in the two experiments, but the reversed ERP reward effects for negative items were found only in Experiment 1. The results of the present study suggest that reward association affects the encoding and retrieval of emotional images by enhancing memory processing efficiency of positive and neutral items, while impairing recognition of negative items, thus yielding a robust and sustained modulation over frontal/frontocentral or centroparietal/parietal areas where mechanisms of reward and emotion processing operate in conjunction.

Of ugly gains and happy losses: An event-related potential study of interactions of the intrinsic and acquired valence of emotional pictures

During the last decades, event-related potential research on the processing of intrinsic and acquired valence has made great progress, but the two dimensions rarely varied simultaneously. Only that way, however, can we investigate whether the acquisition of extrinsic valence varies with intrinsic valence and whether intrinsic and acquired valence share the same brain mechanisms. Forty-five participants performed associative learning of gains and losses, using pictures varying on intrinsic valence (positive, negative) and outcome (90 % gain, 50 %/50 %, 90 % loss). 64-channel EEG was recorded. During acquisition, one picture from each valence/outcome combination was repeatedly presented, followed by abstract outcome information (+10 ct, -10 ct) at the predefined probability. In the test phase, participants pressed buttons to earn the real gains and avoid the real losses associated with the pictures. Here, effects of outcome and/or its congruence with intrinsic valence were observed for RT, error rate, frontal theta power, posterior P2, P300, and LPP. Moreover, outcome systematically affected post-test valence and arousal ratings. During acquisition, a contingency effect (90 % > 50 %) on amplitude of a frontal negative slow wave accompanied the progress of learning, independently of outcome, valence, and congruence. The relative absence of outcome effects during acquisition suggests "cold" semantic rather than genuinely affective processing of gains and losses. However, with real gains and losses in the test phase, "hot" affective processing took place, and outcome and its congruence with intrinsic valence influenced behavior and neural processing. Finally, the data suggest both shared and distinct brain mechanisms of intrinsic and acquired valence.

Reward History Modulates the Processing of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces in a Demanding Task

The aim of the current study was to examine how reward-associated emotional facial distractors could capture attentional resources in a demanding visual task using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the learning phase, a high- or low-reward probability was paired with angry, happy, or neutral faces. Then, in the test phase, participants performed a face-irrelevant task with no reward at stake, in which they needed to discriminate the length of two lines presented in the center of the screen while faces that were taken from the learning phase were used as distractors presented in the periphery. The behavioral results revealed no effect of distractor emotional valence since the emotional information was task-irrelevant. The ERP results in the test phase revealed a significant main effect of distractor emotional valence for the parieto-occipital P200 (170-230 ms); the mean amplitudes in both the angry- and happy-face conditions were more positive than the neutral-face condition. Moreover, we found that the high-reward association enhanced both the N170 (140-180 ms) and EPN (260-330 ms) relative to the low-reward association condition. Finally, the N2pc (270-320 ms) also exhibited enhanced neural activity in the high-reward condition compared to the low-reward condition. The absence of emotional effects indicated that task-irrelevant emotional facial stimuli did not impact behavioral or neural responses in this highly demanding task. However, reward-associated information was processed when attention was directed elsewhere, suggesting that the processing of reward-associated information worked more in an automatic way, irrespective of the top-down task demand.

Expectations of immediate and delayed reward differentially affect cognitive task performance

The current study used a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task to examine the neural mechanisms underlying anticipating and receiving an immediate or delayed reward and examined the influence of pursuing these rewards on cognitive task performance. A pre-cue indicating the potential of gaining a monetary reward (immediate-, delayed-, vs. no-reward) was followed by a target stimulus requiring a fast and accurate response. Then, response-contingent feedback was presented indicating whether or not the participant would receive the corresponding reward. Linear mixed-effect models revealed the fastest behavioural responses and the strongest neural activity, as reflected in event-related-potentials and event-related-spectral-perturbation responses, for immediate reward, followed by delayed reward, with the slowest behavioural responses and the weakest neural activities observed in the no-reward condition. Expectations related to the cue-P3 component and the cue-delta activities predicted behavioural performance, especially in the immediate reward condition. Moreover, exploratory analyses revealed that depression moderated the relationship between target-locked neural activity and behavioural performance in the delayed reward condition, with lower neural activity being related to worse behavioural performance amongst participants scoring high on depression. These results indicate that differential value representations formed through delay discounting directly affect neural responses in reward processing and directly influence the effort invested in the current task, which is reflected by behavioural responses and is in agreement with the expected value of control theory.

Effects of emotion and semantic relatedness on recognition memory: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Some aspects of our memory are enhanced by emotion, whereas others can be unaffected or even hindered. Previous studies reported impaired associative memory of emotional content, an effect termed associative "emotional interference". The current study used EEG and an associative recognition paradigm to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with this effect. In two experiments, participants studied negative and neutral stimulus-pairs that were either semantically related or unrelated. In Experiment 1 emotions were relevant to the encoding task (valence judgment) whereas in Experiment 2 emotions were irrelevant (familiarity judgment). In a subsequent associative recognition test, EEG was recorded while participants discriminated between intact, rearranged, and new pairs. An associative emotional interference effect was observed in both experiments, but was attenuated for semantically related pairs in Experiment 1, where valence was relevant to the task. Moreover, a modulation of an early associative memory ERP component (300-550 ms) occurred for negative pairs when valence was task-relevant (Experiment 1), but for semantically related pairs when valence was irrelevant (Experiment 2). A later ERP component (550-800 ms) showed a more general pattern, and was observed in all experimental conditions. These results suggest that both valence and semantic relations can act as an organizing principle that promotes associative binding. Their ability to contribute to successful retrieval depends on specific task demands.

The influence of reward anticipation on conflict control in children and adolescents: Evidences from hierarchical drift-diffusion model and event-related potentials

Reward is deemed a performance reinforcer. The current study investigated how social and monetary reward anticipation affected cognitive control in 39 children, 40 adolescents, and 40 adults. We found that cognitive control performance improved with age in a Simon task, and the reaction time (RT) was modulated by the reward magnitude. The conflict monitoring process (target N2 amplitudes) of adolescents and the attentional control processes (target P3 amplitudes) of adolescents and adults could be adjusted by reward magnitude, suggesting that adolescents were more sensitive to rewards compared to children. Reward magnitudes influenced the neural process of attentional control with larger P3 in congruent trails than that in incongruent trials only in low reward condition. The result of hierarchical drift-diffusion model indicated that children had slower drift rates, higher decision threshold, and longer non-decision time than adolescents and adults. Adolescents had faster drift rates in monetary task than in social task under the high reward condition, and they had faster drift rates under high reward condition than no reward condition only in the monetary task. The correlation analysis further showed that adults' non-decision time and decision threshold correlated with conflict monitoring process (N2 responses) and attentional control process on conflicts (P3 responses). Adolescents' drift rates associated with neural process of attentional control. The current study reveals that reward magnitude and reward type can modulate cognitive control process, especially in adolescents.

Central nervous activity during an emotional Stroop task in fibromyalgia syndrome

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition of widespread pain accompanied by symptoms like depression, fatigue and cognitive impairments. In addition to central nervous pain sensitization, emotional dysregulation may be involved in FMS pathogenesis. This study investigated emotional influences on cognitive processing in FMS. Event-related potentials and theta oscillations were recorded during an emotional Stroop task including positive, negative, and neutral adjectives in 36 FMS patients and 35 controls. Patients had larger P3 amplitudes and greater theta power than controls, independent of the emotional word content. In patients, but not controls, negative words were associated with a larger late positive component (LPC) amplitude than positive words. No group difference was seen for P1, early posterior negativity or N4. Reaction times (RTs) were longer in patients than controls, independent of emotional word content. The P3 and theta oscillation findings suggest greater cognitive effort and attentional mobilization in FMS, which is needed to overcome the reduction of attentional resources resulting from central nervous pain sensitization. Although RTs do not support attentional bias in FMS, emotional modulation of the LPC amplitude may reflect preferential central nervous processing of negative information, which could contribute to pain and affective symptoms characterizing FMS. ACCESS TO RESEARCH DATA: The research data of the study are available to the public via the Open Science Framework repository (OSF: https://osf.io/tsyre/).

Valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words

This study reports valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words, including 9774 two-character words, 949 three-character words, and 587 four-character words. These affective ratings are validated through comparisons with prior ratings of smaller word samples. All but four words included in this study are from the MEgastudy of Lexical Decision in Simplified CHinese (MELD-SCH) database. As age-of-acquisition ratings and concreteness ratings have recently become available for large portions of words in the MELD-SCH, the affective ratings not only further enrich the database as a valuable research tool, but also allow us to gain insight into a range of psycholinguistic constructs based on normative ratings of a large set of Chinese words. Cross-language comparisons of the valence ratings between Chinese words and English words appear to indicate cultural and sociopolitical influences reflected in affect representations.

Reward expectation modulates N2pc for target selection: Electrophysiological evidence

In an electrophysiological experiment, we investigated the effect of reward expectation on the localized attentional interference effect using a cue-target paradigm, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. A cue indicating the reward condition of each trial (incentive vs. non-incentive) was followed by the presentation of a search array containing two target items. Participants were asked to decide whether the two shape singletons (two triangles, two rectangles, or one triangle and one rectangle) among a set of circles were the same shape. Moreover, we manipulated the distance between the two targets to be adjacent to each other (Separation 1) or further apart (Separation 3 and Separation 5). Behavioral results revealed a larger reward facilitation effect for the larger target separation conditions. The N2pc component locked to the target display exhibited an interaction between reward expectation and the distance between the two targets. For non-incentive trials, the N2pc amplitude increased as the separation between the two targets increased; however, for incentive trials, the N2pc showed comparable amplitudes in the different target separation conditions. These results indicate that reward expectation regulated attentional focus to better resolve the competition between representation and selection of the two targets for acquiring possible reward outcomes.

Processing of increased frequency of social interaction in social anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder

We investigated how patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) process an increase in the frequency of social interaction. We used an EEG-compatible version of the online ball-tossing game Cyberball to induce an increase in the frequency of social interaction. In the first condition, each player received the ball equally often (inclusion: 33% ball reception). In the following condition, the frequency of the ball reception was increased (overinclusion: 45% ball reception). The main outcome variable was the event-related potential P2, an indicator for social reward processing. Moreover, positive emotions were assessed. Twenty-eight patients with SAD, 29 patients with BPD and 28 healthy controls (HCs) participated. As expected, HCs and patients with BPD, but not patients with SAD, showed an increase in the P2 amplitude from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. Contrary to our expectations, positive emotions did not change from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. EEG results provide preliminary evidence that patients with BPD and HCs, but not patients with SAD, process an increase in the frequency of social interaction as rewarding.

The interactive effects of reward expectation and emotional interference on cognitive conflict control: An ERP study

The effects of reward expectation and task-irrelevant emotional content on performance and event-related potential (ERP) recordings in a cognitive conflict control task were investigated using the face-word Stroop paradigm. A precue indicating additional monetary rewards for fast and accurate responses during the upcoming trial (incentive condition; relative to a cue indicating no additional reward, i.e., nonincentive condition) was followed by the presentation of target Chinese words (male vs. female) superimposed on background emotional faces (happy vs. fearful). The face's gender was congruent or incongruent with the target Chinese words. ERP results revealed that incentive cues elicited larger P1, P3, and CNV responses compared to nonincentive cues. There was a significant three-way interaction of reward expectation, emotional content, and congruency during the target processing stage such that emotionality and congruency interacted to affect the N170 and N2 component responses during the nonincentive condition but not during the incentive condition. These results indicate that reward-induced motivation reduces the interference effect of task-irrelevant emotional information, leading to better conflict resolution.

Neural Dynamic Responses of Monetary and Social Reward Processes in Adolescents

Adolescence is an essential developmental period characterized by reward-related processes. The current study investigated the development of monetary and social reward processes in adolescents compared with that in children and adults; furthermore, it assessed whether adolescents had different levels of sensitivity to various types of rewards. Two adapted incentive delay tasks were employed for each participant, and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that both monetary and social rewards could motivate response speed, and participants were more accurate under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The behavioral performances of individuals increased with age. For the ERP data, the cue-P3, target-P2, target-P3 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) components were investigated to identify reward motivation, emotional arousal, attention allocation and feedback processing. Children and adolescents showed higher motivation (larger cue-P3) to rewards than adults. Adolescents showed larger emotional responses to rewards; that is, they had larger target-P2 amplitudes than adults and shorter target-P2 latencies than children. Children showed stronger emotional reactivity for monetary rewards than for social rewards. All age groups had stronger attentional control (larger target-P3) under the monetary reward condition than under the social reward condition. The present study sheds light on the neurodevelopment of reward processes in children, adolescents and adults and shows that various reward process stages demonstrate different age-related and reward-type-related characteristics.

Attention Capture of Non-target Emotional Faces: An Evidence From Reward Learning

The aim of this study was to explore whether reward learning would affect the processing of targets when an emotional stimulus was task irrelevant. In the current study, using a visual search paradigm to establish an association between emotional faces and reward, an emotional face appeared as a task-irrelevant distractor during the test after reward learning, and participants were asked to judge the orientation of a line on the face. In experiment 1, no significant difference was found between the high reward-fear distractor condition and the no reward-neutral condition, but the response times of the high reward-fear condition were significantly longer than those of the low reward-happy condition. In experiment 2, there was no significant difference in participants' performance between high reward-happy and no reward-neutral responses. In addition, response times of the low reward-fear condition wear significantly longer than those of the high reward-happy and no reward-neutral conditions. The results show that reward learning affects attention bias of task-irrelevant emotional faces even when reward is absent. Moreover, the high reward selection history is more effective in weakening the emotional advantage of the processing advantage than the low reward.

Perception of Threatening Intention Modulates Brain Processes to Body Actions: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

Efficiently perceiving a threatening intention conveyed by others’ bodily actions has great survival value. The current study examined if the human brain is sensitive to differences in intentions that are conveyed via bodily actions. For this purpose, a new intention categorization task was developed in which participants sat in front of a computer screen on which the pictures of highly threatening (HT), moderately threatening (MT), and non-threatening (NT) body actions were presented randomly. Participants were asked to press the corresponding buttons using threatening intention judgment, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. According to a cluster permutation test, we analyzed N190, N2, EPP (early posterior positivity), and P3. The results showed there was a positive correlation between the amplitude of the EPP induced by three kinds of body actions and the reaction time of the task. The results also revealed that when the deflection of EPP was less positive, the reaction time was shorter. We suggest that EPP might be useful as an index of body intention processing of the brain. The current study revealed that intention perception of body actions modulates brain processing.

Potential reward reduces the adverse impact of negative distractor stimuli

Knowledge about interactions between reward and negative processing is rudimentary. Here, we employed functional MRI to probe how potential reward signaled by advance cues alters aversive distractor processing during perception. Behaviorally, the influence of aversive stimuli on task performance was reduced during the reward compared to no-reward condition. In the brain, at the task phase, paralleling the observed behavioral pattern, we observed significant interactions in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, such that responses during the negative (vs neutral) condition were reduced during the reward compared to no-reward condition. Notably, negative distractor processing in the amygdala appeared to be independent of the reward manipulation. During the initial cue phase, we observed increased reward-related responses in the ventral striatum/accumbens, which were correlated with behavioral interference scores at the subsequent task phase, revealing that participants with increased reward-related responses exhibited a greater behavioral benefit of reward in reducing the adverse effect of negative images. Furthermore, during processing of reward (vs no-reward) cues, the ventral striatum exhibited stronger functional connectivity with fronto-parietal regions important for attentional control. Together, our findings contribute to the understanding of how potential reward influences attentional control and reduces negative distractor processing in the human brain.

Intranasal Oxytocin Selectively Modulates Large-Scale Brain Networks in Humans

A growing body of evidence indicates that the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) alters the neural correlates of socioemotional and salience processing. Yet the effects of OT over important large-scale networks involved in these processes, such as the default mode (DM), ventral attention (VA), and cingulo-opercular (CO) networks, remain unknown. Therefore, we conducted a placebo-controlled crossover study with intranasal 24 IU OT in 38 healthy male subjects using a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm to investigate its impact over these three networks candidates. To understand the underlying mechanisms of the neuropeptide, we compared the intranetwork connectivity for each network candidate and also the internetwork connectivity across all networks between both treatment conditions. Based on the relevance of interindividual factors for OT effects, we correlated individual network changes with behavioral performance in a decision-making task and with impulsivity scores. Our results show that OT mainly alters connectivity in the VA, on one side reducing the coupling to regions that typically form the nodes of DM, an introspective and self-referential network, and on the other side increasing the coupling to the edges of the CO, which is involved in salience processing. The results of the internetwork analyses confirmed the specificity of the OT effects. Indeed, we observed significant correlations with the erroneous performance during decision-making but not with the obtained impulsivity scores. Overall, our data support that the modulation of functional connectivity within the VA is a basic mechanism by which OT directs attentional resources from internal to external cues, preparing the brain for context-dependent salience processing.

Development of Monetary and Social Reward Processes

The current study investigated monetary and social reward processing in children, adolescents and adults with adapted incentive-delay tasks and self-report questionnaires. Both tasks had three levels of reward magnitudes (no, low, and high). Qualified participants received 15 Chinese Yuan and an honor certificate as monetary and social rewards, respectively. The results indicated that both monetary and social rewards effectively speeded up responses for all three age groups as reward magnitude increased in the choice reaction time task. Among adolescents and adults, males exhibited faster responses in high reward than in low reward condition, while females responded equally fast in both conditions. Among children, girls responded faster to high reward than low reward condition. However, boys committed more errors than girls in low and high reward conditions, and they had exhibited more errors in high reward than that in no reward condition for social reward. Regarding the subjective ratings, both children and adolescents reported higher motivation for social reward than for monetary reward. These findings indicated that the males in the adolescent and adult groups were more sensitive to reward than were the females. Moreover, tangible and quantitative social reward had stronger incentive power than monetary reward among children and adolescents.

Halfhearted Action and Control

Some of the things we do intentionally we do halfheartedly. I develop and defend an account of halfheartedness with respect to action on which one is halfhearted with respect to an action A if one's overall motivation to A is weak. This requires getting clear on what it is to have some level of overall motivation with respect to an action, and on what it means to say one's overall motivation is weak or strong. After developing this account, I defend the claim that one key functional expression of halfhearted action is the possession of impaired control over the action in question. Finally, I elucidate a puzzle that sometimes arises with respect to halfhearted action. The puzzle arises when an agent's commitment in acting conflicts with an agent's acceptance of poor performance.