The anger incentive delay task: A novel method for studying anger in neuroscience research

To Blame or Not? Modulating Third-Party Punishment with the Framing Effect

People as third-party observers, without direct self-interest, may punish norm violators to maintain social norms. However, third-party judgment and the follow-up punishment might be susceptible to the way we frame (i.e., verbally describe) a norm violation. We conducted a behavioral and a neuroimaging experiment to investigate the above phenomenon, which we call the "third-party framing effect". In these experiments, participants observed an anonymous perpetrator deciding whether to keep her/his economic benefit while exposing a victim to a risk of physical pain (described as "harming others" in one condition and "not helping others" in the other condition), then they had a chance to punish that perpetrator at their own cost. Our results showed that the participants were more willing to execute third-party punishment under the harm frame compared to the help frame, manifesting a framing effect. Self-reported anger toward perpetrators mediated the relationship between empathy toward victims and the framing effect. Meanwhile, activation of the insula mediated the relationship between mid-cingulate cortex activation and the framing effect; the functional connectivity between these regions significantly predicted the size of the framing effect. These findings shed light on the psychological and neural mechanisms of the third-party framing effect.

Frontal and parietal EEG alpha asymmetry: a large-scale investigation of short-term reliability on distinct EEG systems

EEG resting-state alpha asymmetry is one of the most widely investigated forms of functional hemispheric asymmetries in both basic and clinical neuroscience. However, studies yield inconsistent results. One crucial prerequisite to obtain reproducible results is the reliability of the index of interest. There is a body of research suggesting a moderate-to-good reliability of EEG resting-state alpha asymmetry, but unfortunately sample sizes in these studies are typically small. This study presents the first large-scale short-term reliability study of frontal and parietal EEG resting-state alpha asymmetry. We used the Dortmund Vital Study data set containing 370 participants. In each participant, EEG resting state was recorded eight times, twice with their eyes opened, twice with their eyes-closed, each on two different EEG systems. We found good reliability of EEG alpha power and alpha asymmetry on both systems for electrode pairs. We also found that alpha power asymmetry reliability is higher in the eyes-closed condition than in the eyes-open condition. The frontomedial electrode pair showed weaker reliability than the frontolateral and parietal electrode pairs. Interestingly, we found no population-level alpha asymmetry in frontal electrodes, one of the most investigated electrode sites in alpha asymmetry research. In conclusion, our results suggest that while EEG alpha asymmetry is an overall reliable measure, frontal alpha asymmetry should be assessed using multiple electrode pairs.

Losing Money and Motivation: Effects of Loss Incentives on Motivation and Metacognition in Younger and Older Adults

Incentives are usually expected to increase motivation and cognitive control and to thereby improve performance. A small but growing number of studies have begun to investigate whether the effects of incentive on cognitive performance differ for younger vs. older adults. Most have used attention and cognitive control paradigms, trial-wise implementation of incentive condition, and gain incentives (reward), with only a very few investigating the effects of loss incentives. The present study takes a complementary approach: We tested younger and older adults in a working memory paradigm with loss incentives implemented session-wide (between subjects). We also included self-report measures to ask how loss incentive affected participants’ perceptions of the mental demand of the task, as well as their perceived effort, frustration, motivation, distraction, and metacognitive judgments of how well they had performed. This allowed us to test the disparate predictions of different theoretical views: the intuitive hypothesis that incentive should increase motivation and performance, the motivational shift proposal that older adults are especially motivated to avoid losses (Freund and Ebner, 2005), a heuristic “positivity effect” perspective that older adults ignore losses (Brassen et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2017), and a more nuanced view that suggests that when negative information is unavoidable and increases perceived costs, older adults may instead disengage from the situation (Charles, 2010; Hess, 2014). The results seemed most consistent with the more nuanced view of the positivity effect. While neither group showed incentive-related performance differences, both younger and older adults reported greater perceived demand and frustration under loss incentive, especially in the most challenging conditions. Loss incentive increased the accuracy of immediate metacognitive judgments, but reduced the accuracy of later, more global judgments of competency for older adults. Self-report measures suggested that the loss incentive manipulation was distracting to young adults and demotivating for older adults. The results suggest a need for caution in generalizing from existing studies to everyday life, and that additional studies parameterizing critical aspects of task design and incentive manipulation are needed to fully understand how incentives affect cognition and motivation in younger and older adults.

Single-Dose of Testosterone and the MAOA VNTR Polymorphism Influence Emotional and Behavioral Responses in Men During a Non-social Frustration Task

Previous studies suggest that testosterone and several neurotransmitters might interactively influence human aggression. The current study aimed to test potential interactions of a genetic variation linked to the catabolism of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine and exogenous testosterone on the reaction towards non-social provocation. In total, 146 male participants were genotyped for a prominent polymorphism of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene resulting in a short and long variant. Participants completed a non-social frustration task after receiving either testosterone or a placebo gel in a double-blind set-up. Participants performed a non-social frustration task, where they had to direct a virtually moving ball into a barrel by pulling a joystick (neutral block). During a frustration block, the joystick repeatedly did not respond to participants' reactions thereby causing failed trials to which participants reacted with increased anger and stronger pulling of the joystick. We analyzed the effect of testosterone administration on emotion and behavior in individuals who either carried a low (L) or high (H) activity MAOA variant. Testosterone administration increased provocation-related self-reported anger and abolished the association between trait aggression and joystick deflection in the frustration block. In MAOA-H carriers endogenous testosterone levels at baseline were associated with increased joystick deflection in both blocks. There was, however, no interaction of testosterone administration and genotype. Although preliminary, the results rather indicate independent influences of exogenous testosterone administration and MAOA, but support an interaction of endogenous testosterone levels and MAOA genetics in a frustration task. The administration of testosterone seems to act on the subjective emotional experience in a provoking situation, while endogenous testosterone levels increased pulling impulses only in carriers of the MAOA-H variant.

The effect of perceived effort and perceived control on reward valuation: Using the reward positivity to test a dissonance theory prediction

Past psychological theory and research suggest two opposing relationships between effort and reward valuation. Cognitive dissonance theory and research suggest that increased effort is associated with increased reward valuation, whereas theory and research on effort discounting suggest that increased effort is associated with decreased reward valuation. The present study was designed to test these two opposing perspectives, by examining a potential moderator of the relationship between effort and reward valuation - the belief that the effort was necessary to obtain the reward. Results (n = 44) suggested that increased perceptions of effort following a task were associated with larger neural responses to rewards (as assessed by the event-related potential referred to as the reward positivity) when individuals believed that their effort led to the reward but not when they believed that their effort did not lead to the reward. Discussion considers the implications of these results.

The Effect of Perceived Effort on Reward Valuation: Taking the Reward Positivity (RewP) to Dissonance Theory

The present research was designed to test whether the subjective experience of more effort related to more reward valuation as measured by a neural response. This prediction was derived from the theory of cognitive dissonance and its effort justification paradigm. Young adult participants (n = 82) engaged in multiple trails of a low or high effort task that resulted in a loss or reward on each trial. Neural responses to the reward (loss) cue were measured using EEG so that the event-related potential known as the Reward Positivity (RewP) could be assessed. Results revealed no significant differences between low and high effort conditions on the RewP. However, within the high effort condition, a more subjective experience of effort was associated with a larger RewP. This research extends past research on the effort justification paradigm of cognitive dissonance theory by suggesting that effort justification is associated with an implicit measure of reward valuation. It, therefore, challenges recent perspectives on dissonance processes that posit that these evaluative changes should only occur on explicit but not implicit measures.

Losses tune differently than gains: how gains and losses shape attentional scope and influence goal pursuit

Research on the asymmetric effect of negative versus positive affective states (induced by gains or losses) on scope of attention, both at a perceptual and a conceptual level, is abundant. However, little is known about the moderating effect of anticipating gains or losses versus actually experiencing them and about any downstream consequences of these effects on goal-directed behaviour. In two studies, we show that gains versus losses induce qualitatively different processes. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that the anticipation of monetary gains results in a narrowing of attentional scope, while experiencing gains broadens the scope of attention. We find the reverse pattern concerning monetary losses - while anticipation of monetary losses results in broadening of attentional scope, the actual experience of losses results in narrowing of attentional scope. Additionally, Experiment 2 replicates these findings and shows how differential attentional tuning as a function of the anticipation versus experience of gains versus losses modulates priming-induced goal-directed behaviour.

TEAMwork: Testing Emotional Attunement and Mutuality During Parent-Adolescent fMRI

The parent-child relationship and family context influence the development of emotion regulation (ER) brain circuitry and related skills in children and adolescents. Although both parents' and children's ER neurocircuitry simultaneously affect how they interact with one another, neuroimaging studies of parent-child relationships typically include only one member of the dyad in brain imaging procedures. The current study examined brain activation related to parenting and ER in parent-adolescent dyads during concurrent fMRI scanning with a novel task - the Testing Emotional Attunement and Mutuality (TEAM) task. The TEAM task includes feedback trials indicating the other dyad member made an error, resulting in a monetary loss for both participants. Results indicate that positive parenting practices as reported by the adolescent were positively correlated with parents' hemodynamic activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region related to empathy, during these error trials. Additionally, during feedback conditions both parents and adolescents exhibited fMRI activation in ER-related regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, fusiform gyrus, thalamus, caudate, precuneus, and superior parietal lobule. Adolescents had higher left amygdala activation than parents during the feedback condition. These findings demonstrate the utility of dyadic fMRI scanning for investigating relational processes, particularly in the parent-child relationship.

Always on my mind: Cross-brain associations of mental health symptoms during simultaneous parent-child scanning

How parents manifest symptoms of anxiety or depression may affect how children learn to modulate their own distress, thereby influencing the children's risk for developing an anxiety or mood disorder. Conversely, children's mental health symptoms may impact parents' experiences of negative emotions. Therefore, mental health symptoms can have bidirectional effects in parent-child relationships, particularly during moments of distress or frustration (e.g., when a parent or child makes a costly mistake). The present study used simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of parent-adolescent dyads to examine how brain activity when responding to each other's costly errors (i.e., dyadic error processing) may be associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression. While undergoing simultaneous fMRI scans, healthy dyads completed a task involving feigned errors that indicated their family member made a costly mistake. Inter-brain, random-effects multivariate modeling revealed that parents who exhibited decreased medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex activation when viewing their child's costly error response had children with more symptoms of depression and anxiety. Adolescents with increased anterior insula activation when viewing a costly error made by their parent had more anxious parents. These results reveal cross-brain associations between mental health symptomatology and brain activity during parent-child dyadic error processing.

After-effects of self-control: The reward responsivity hypothesis

Exercising self-control can be phenomenologically aversive. Insofar as individuals strive to maintain a positive emotional state, one consequence of exercising self-control may thus be a temporarily tuning toward or amplification of reward-related impulses (perhaps arising to countermand the aversive feelings that stem from self-control). Reward-relevant after-effects are relatively underappreciated in self-control research. In the current paper, we review theory and research pertaining to the idea that exercising self-control increases reward responsivity. First, we review theoretical models of self-control focusing on the relationship between control systems and reward systems. Second, we review behavioral studies regarding the effects of exercising self-control on subsequent reactivity to food, money, drugs, and positive emotional images. Third, we review findings from functional neuroimaging and electroencephalographic research pertaining to the reward responsivity hypothesis. We then call for additional research to integrate how, when, and under what circumstances self-control exertion influences reward processing. Such an endeavor will help to advance research and theory on self-control by offering a more precise characterization of the dynamic interactions between control systems and reward systems.