scholarly journals Dissociable influences of reward and punishment on adaptive cognitive control

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. e1009737
Author(s):  
Xiamin Leng ◽  
Debbie Yee ◽  
Harrison Ritz ◽  
Amitai Shenhav
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Accumulation Rate ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Response Threshold ◽  
Control Allocation ◽  
Performance Incentives ◽  
Normative Model ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Rate Versus ◽  
Potential Negative Consequence

To invest effort into any cognitive task, people must be sufficiently motivated. Whereas prior research has focused primarily on how the cognitive control required to complete these tasks is motivated by the potential rewards for success, it is also known that control investment can be equally motivated by the potential negative consequence for failure. Previous theoretical and experimental work has yet to examine how positive and negative incentives differentially influence the manner and intensity with which people allocate control. Here, we develop and test a normative model of control allocation under conditions of varying positive and negative performance incentives. Our model predicts, and our empirical findings confirm, that rewards for success and punishment for failure should differentially influence adjustments to the evidence accumulation rate versus response threshold, respectively. This dissociation further enabled us to infer how motivated a given person was by the consequences of success versus failure.

scholarly journals Dissociable influences of reward and punishment on adaptive cognitive control

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiamin Leng ◽  
Debbie Yee ◽  
Harrison Ritz ◽  
Amitai Shenhav
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Incorrect Response ◽  
Response Threshold ◽  
Drift Diffusion Model ◽  
Adaptive Allocation ◽  
Rate Versus ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Motivational Salience ◽  
Task Goals ◽  
Reward And Punishment

When deciding how to allocate cognitive control to a given task, people must consider both positive outcomes (e.g., praise) and negative outcomes (e.g., admonishment). However, it is unclear how these two forms of incentives differentially influence the amount and type of cognitive control a person chooses to allocate to achieve task goals. To address this question, we had participants perform a self-paced incentivized cognitive control task, varying the magnitude of reward for a correct response and punishment for an incorrect response. Formalizing control allocation as a process of adjusting parameters of a drift diffusion model (DDM), we show that participants engaged in different strategies in response to reward (primarily adjusting drift rate) versus punishment (primarily adjusting response threshold). We demonstrate that this divergent set of strategies is optimal for maximizing reward rate while minimizing effort costs. Finally, we show that these dissociable patterns of behavior enable us to infer the motivational salience of positive versus negative incentives for a given individual. These results provide a normative and mechanistic account for how reward and punishment differentially influence the adaptive allocation of cognitive control.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

The neurobiology of simultaneous interpreting: Where extreme language control and cognitive control intersect

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 740-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Hervais-Adelman ◽  
Laura Babcock
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Integrative Model ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Simultaneous Interpreting ◽  
Concurrent Execution ◽  
Complex Cognitive Task ◽  
Language Control

Simultaneous interpreting is a complex cognitive task that requires the concurrent execution of multiple processes: listening, comprehension, conversion of a message from one language to another, speech production, and self-monitoring. This requires the deployment of an array of linguistic and cognitive control mechanisms that must coordinate the various brain systems implicated in handling these tasks. How the brain handles this challenge remains an open question, and recent brain imaging investigations have begun to complement the theories based on behavioural data. fMRI studies have shown that simultaneous interpreting engages a network of brain regions encompassing those implicated in speech perception and production, language switching, self-monitoring, and selection. Structural imaging studies have been carried out that also indicate modifications to a similar set of structures. In the present paper, we review the extant data and propose an integrative model of simultaneous interpreting that piggybacks on existing theories of multilingual language control.

Experimental manipulation of cognitive control processes causes an increase in communication disturbances in healthy volunteers

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (7) ◽  
pp. 995-1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. KERNS
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Healthy Volunteers ◽  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Memory Interference ◽  
Interference Resolution ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Poor Cognition

Background. Although communication disturbances (CD) have been associated with poor cognitive control, it is unclear whether they are associated specifically with poor cognitive control or with poor cognition in general. The current research examined whether (a) two specific components of cognitive control, working memory and interference resolution, were associated with CD, and (b) associations between CD and cognitive control could be accounted for by generalized poor cognitive performance.Method. In this study, as healthy volunteers spoke, the level of cognitive demands was experimentally increased, thereby simulating cognitive deficits (i.e. a reduction in the degree to which certain types of cognitive processes could be used for speech). Hence, this research examined whether simulated cognitive deficits would cause an increase in CD. Participants also completed separate cognitive tasks that assessed working memory, interference resolution and general cognitive ability.Results. An increase in working memory demands caused an increase in CD. Moreover, working memory demands interacted with interference resolution demands, with the greatest amount of CD caused by both high working memory and high interference resolution demands. By contrast, increasing another cognitive demand, sustained attention, did not increase CD. Furthermore, performance on separate working memory and interference resolution tasks interacted to predict CD on the experimental speech task. However, performance on a psychometrically matched cognitive task did not predict CD.Conclusion. Overall, the current study provides evidence that working memory and interference resolution may be specifically associated with CD and that manipulations of these cognitive control processes can cause an increase in CD.

scholarly journals Memory-reliant Post-error Slowing Is Associated with Successful Learning and Fronto-occipital Activity

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1539-1552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn C. Schiffler ◽  
Rita Almeida ◽  
Mathias Granqvist ◽  
Sara L. Bengtsson
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Response Speed ◽  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Theories

Negative feedback after an action in a cognitive task can lead to devaluing that action on future trials as well as to more cautious responding when encountering that same choice again. These phenomena have been explored in the past by reinforcement learning theories and cognitive control accounts, respectively. Yet, how cognitive control interacts with value updating to give rise to adequate adaptations under uncertainty is less clear. In this fMRI study, we investigated cognitive control-based behavioral adjustments during a probabilistic reinforcement learning task and studied their influence on performance in a later test phase in which the learned value of items is tested. We provide support for the idea that functionally relevant and memory-reliant behavioral adjustments in the form of post-error slowing during reinforcement learning are associated with test performance. Adjusting response speed after negative feedback was correlated with BOLD activity in right inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral middle occipital cortex during the event of receiving the feedback. Bilateral middle occipital cortex activity overlapped partly with activity reflecting feedback deviance from expectations as measured by unsigned prediction error. These results suggest that cognitive control and feature processing cortical regions interact to implement feedback-congruent adaptations beneficial to learning.

scholarly journals Motivation and Cognitive Control in Depression

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Amitai Shenhav ◽  
Sebastian Musslick ◽  
Ruth M. Krebs ◽  
Ernst H.W. Koster
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Cognitive Impairments ◽  
Control Allocation ◽  
Mechanistic Models ◽  
Mechanistic Understanding

AbstractDepression is linked to deficits in cognitive control and a host of other cognitive impairments arise as a consequence of these deficits. Despite of their important role in depression, there are no mechanistic models of cognitive control deficits in depression. In this paper we propose how these deficits can emerge from the interaction between motivational and cognitive processes. We review depression-related impairments in key components of motivation along with new cognitive neuroscience models that focus on the role of motivation in the decision-making about cognitive control allocation. Based on this review we propose a unifying framework which connects motivational and cognitive control deficits in depression. This framework is rooted in computational models of cognitive control and offers a mechanistic understanding of cognitive control deficits in depression.

Apolipoprotein ε4 is associated with better cognitive control allocation in healthy young adults

NeuroImage ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 274-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Wiebke Bensmann ◽  
Larissa Arning ◽  
Christian Beste ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Stock
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Control Allocation ◽  
Apolipoprotein Ε4

The Case of the Cognitive (Opti)miser: Electrophysiological Correlates of Working Memory Maintenance Predict Demand Avoidance

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 1550-1561
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Nador ◽  
Assaf Harel ◽  
Ion Juvina ◽  
Brandon Minnery
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Filtering Efficiency ◽  
Task Irrelevant

People are often considered cognitive misers. When given a free choice between two tasks, people tend to choose tasks requiring less cognitive effort. Such demand avoidance (DA) is associated with cognitive control, but it is still not clear to what extent individual differences in cognitive control can account for variations in DA. We sought to elucidate the relation between cognitive control and cognitive effort preferences by investigating the extent to which sustained neural activity in a task requiring cognitive control is correlated with DA. We hypothesized that neural measures of efficient filtering will predict individual variations in demand preferences. To test this hypothesis, we had participants perform a delayed-match-to-sample paradigm with their ERPs recorded, as well as a separate behavioral demand-selection task. We focused on the ERP correlates of cognitive filtering efficiency (CFE)—the ability to ignore task-irrelevant distractors during working memory maintenance—as it manifests in a modulation of the contralateral delay activity, an ERP correlate of cognitive control. As predicted, we found a significant positive correlation between CFE and DA. Individuals with high CFE tended to be significantly more demand avoidant than their low-CFE counterparts. Low-CFE individuals, in comparison, did not form distinct cognitive effort preferences. Overall, our results suggest that cognitive control over the contents of visual working memory contribute to individual differences in the expression of cognitive effort preferences. This further implies that these observed preferences are the product of sensitivity to cognitive task demands.

The Perception of Available Resources Influences the After-Effect of Cognitive Control on Cognitive Performance and Pain

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 332-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Silvestrini ◽  
Elodie Vuignier ◽  
Alain Matthey ◽  
Valérie Piguet
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Sequential Task ◽  
After Effect ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Available Resources

Abstract. In two experiments, we investigated the impact of perceived available cognitive resources using a sequential-task paradigm. First, participants worked on an easy or difficult cognitive task. Then, they received a cue suggesting that their cognitive resources were still optimal or they did not receive any information on their resources. Subsequently, they worked on a second difficult cognitive task (Experiment 1) or received painful electrical stimulations (Experiment 2). We predicted that the cue on optimal resources would neutralize the effect of the first difficult task on subsequent cognitive performance and pain. Overall, results supported our predictions. We interpret these findings as showing an important role of perceived available resources in the after-effect induced by the sequential-task paradigm.

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