scholarly journals Reward sensitivity following boredom and cognitive effort: A high-powered neurophysiological investigation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Milyavskaya ◽  
Michael Inzlicht ◽  
Travis Johnson ◽  
Michael J. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Affective State ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Reward Sensitivity ◽  
Digit Number ◽  
Feedback Negativity ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Subsequent Task ◽  
Immediate Response

What do people feel like doing after they have exerted cognitive effort or are bored? Here, we empirically test whether people are drawn to rewards (at the neural level) following cognitive effort and boredom. This elucidates the experiences and consequences of engaging in cognitive effort, and compares it to the consequences of experiencing boredom, an affective state with predicted similar motivational consequences. Event-related potentials were recorded after participants (N=243) were randomized into one of three conditions – boredom (passively observing strings of numbers), cognitive effort (adding 3 to each digit of a four-digit number), or control. In the subsequent task, we focused on the feedback negativity (FN) to assess the brain’s immediate response to the presence or absence of reward. Phenomenologically, participants in the boredom condition reported more fatigue than those in the cognitive effort condition, despite reporting exerting less effort. Results suggest participants in the boredom condition exhibited larger FN amplitude than participants in the control condition, while the cognitive effort condition was neither different from boredom nor control. The neural and methodological implications for ego depletion research, including issues of replicability, are discussed.

scholarly journals Reward sensitivity following boredom and cognitive effort: A high-powered neurophysiological investigation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Milyavskaya ◽  
Michael Inzlicht ◽  
Travis Johnson ◽  
Michael Larson
Keyword(s):  
Affective State ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Reward Sensitivity ◽  
Digit Number ◽  
Feedback Negativity ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Subsequent Task ◽  
Immediate Response

AbstractWhat do people feel like doing after they have exerted cognitive effort or are bored? Here, we empirically test whether people are drawn to rewards (at the neural level) following cognitive effort and when bored. This elucidates the experiences and consequences of engaging in cognitive effort, and compares it to the consequences of experiencing boredom, an affective state with predicted similar motivational consequences. Event-related potentials were recorded after participants (N=243) were randomized into one of three conditions – boredom (observing strings of numbers), cognitive effort (adding 3 to each digit of a four-digit number), or control. In the subsequent task, we focused on the feedback negativity (FN) to assess the brain’s immediate response to the presence or absence of reward. Phenomenologically, participants in the boredom condition reported more fatigue than those in the cognitive effort condition. Results suggest participants in the boredom condition exhibited larger FN amplitude than participants in the control condition, while the cognitive effort condition was neither different from boredom nor control. The neural and methodological implications for ego depletion research, including issues of replicability, are discussed.

Low-dimensional versus high-dimensional chaos in brain function – is it an and/or issue?

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 823-824 ◽  
Author(s):  
Márk Molnár
Keyword(s):  
Brain Function ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Sensory Information Processing ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Dimensional Complexity ◽  
Low Dimensional ◽  
The Brain

We discuss whether low-dimensional chaos and even nonlinear processes can be traced in the electrical activity of the brain. Experimental data show that the dimensional complexity of the EEG decreases during event-related potentials associated with cognitive effort. This probably represents increased nonlinear cooperation between different neural systems during sensory information processing.

Aesthetics of Faces

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Roye ◽  
Lea Höfel ◽  
Thomas Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Stimulus Material ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Facial Beauty ◽  
The Face ◽  
Related Potentials

Temporal and brain topographic characteristics of the aesthetic judgment of male and female faces were investigated, using event-related potentials and reaction times. The evaluative aesthetic judgment of facial beauty (beautiful vs. not beautiful) was contrasted with a nonevaluative descriptive judgment of head shape (round vs. oval). Analysis showed longer reaction times in the descriptive than in the evaluative task, suggesting that the descriptive judgment demanded more cognitive effort and may entail greater uncertainty. Electrophysiologically, the evaluative judgment elicited a negativity (400 to 480 ms) for the judgment not beautiful, maximal over midline leads. A comparable deflection has been previously reported for evaluative judgments of graphic patterns. It was interpreted as an impression formation independent of the type of stimulus material, occurring when an aesthetic entity is judged intentionally. Besides this effect, which was independent of the gender of the face, the temporal characteristics of aesthetic evaluation differed depending on the gender of the face. We report a negativity for male faces only (280–440 ms) and a late positivity (520–1200 ms), which was stronger for female faces, both concerning not beautiful judgments. Thus, the evaluation of male and female facial beauty was processed in different time-windows. The descriptive judgment round elicited a larger posterior positivity compared with oval (320–620 ms). These results complement investigations of the architecture and time course of evaluative aesthetic and descriptive judgment processes, using faces as stimulus material.

scholarly journals Joint Modulation of Facial Expression Processing by Contextual Congruency and Task Demands

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Aguado ◽  
Karisa Parkington ◽  
Teresa Dieguez-Risco ◽  
José Hinojosa ◽  
Roxane Itier
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Task Effects ◽  
Early Posterior Negativity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Expression Processing ◽  
And Task

Faces showing expressions of happiness or anger were presented together with sentences that described happiness-inducing or anger-inducing situations. Two main variables were manipulated: (i) congruency between contexts and expressions (congruent/incongruent) and (ii) the task assigned to the participant, discriminating the emotion shown by the target face (emotion task) or judging whether the expression shown by the face was congruent or not with the context (congruency task). Behavioral and electrophysiological results (event-related potentials (ERP)) showed that processing facial expressions was jointly influenced by congruency and task demands. ERP results revealed task effects at frontal sites, with larger positive amplitudes between 250–450 ms in the congruency task, reflecting the higher cognitive effort required by this task. Effects of congruency appeared at latencies and locations corresponding to the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) components that have previously been found to be sensitive to emotion and affective congruency. The magnitude and spatial distribution of the congruency effects varied depending on the task and the target expression. These results are discussed in terms of the modulatory role of context on facial expression processing and the different mechanisms underlying the processing of expressions of positive and negative emotions.

scholarly journals Remembered but Unused: The Accessory Items in Working Memory that Do Not Guide Attention

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1081-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith C. Peters ◽  
Rainer Goebel ◽  
Pieter R. Roelfsema
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Target Object ◽  
Memory Item ◽  
Matching Process ◽  
Selection Negativity ◽  
Comparable Performance ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Subsequent Task

If we search for an item, a representation of this item in our working memory guides attention to matching items in the visual scene. We can hold multiple items in working memory. Do all these items guide attention in parallel? We asked participants to detect a target object in a stream of objects while they maintained a second item in memory for a subsequent task. On some trials, we presented this memory item as a distractor in the stream. Subjects did not confuse these memory items with the search target, as the false alarm rate on trials where the memory item was presented in the stream was comparable to that on trials with only regular distractors. However, a comparable performance does not exclude that the memory items are processed differently from normal distractors. We therefore recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by search targets, memory items, and regular distractors. As expected, ERPs evoked by search targets differed from those evoked by distractors. Search targets elicited an occipital selection negativity and a frontal selection positivity indexing selective attention, whereas the P3b component, which reflects the matching of sensory events to memory representations, was enhanced for targets compared to distractors. Remarkably, the ERPs evoked by memory items were indistinguishable from the ERPs evoked by normal distractors. This implies that the search target has a special status in working memory that is not shared by the other items. These other, “accessory” items do not guide attention and are excluded from the matching process.

scholarly journals Action Modulates the Conscious Reasoning Process of Moral Judgment: Evidence From Behavior and Neurophysiology

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Leng ◽  
Jili Zhang ◽  
Yanan Zhangyu ◽  
Xiaoyuan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Moral Competence ◽  
Reasoning Process ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Harm Condition

Moral judgment can be highly affected by the action and intention factors on a behavior level. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the intention factor can modulate both the affective and cognitive processing of moral judgment. The present event-related potentials (ERP) study examined how the action factor modulated the neural dynamics of moral judgment under a newly developed moral dilemma paradigm including three different conditions: harm caused by action (i.e., doing harm), harm caused by omission (i.e., allowing harm), and no harm. Behavior data showed that participants preferred utilitarian judgments and spent less time on the allowing harm condition than for the doing harm condition. ERP results revealed that, compared with the doing harm and no harm dilemmas, the allowing harm dilemmas elicited an enhanced N450 response associated with cognitive control and/or cognitive effort processes, but attenuated a late positive potentials (LPP) response associated with top-down control of attention and cognitive “rational” control processes. Such LPP amplitude differences were positively correlated with the C-score of the moral competence test which indexed the cognitive aspect of moral judgment competency. These findings suggested that people have a strong omission bias, and such an action factor modulates the conscious reasoning process during moral judgment, including the cognitive control and/or cognitive effort, and attentional allocation processes.

scholarly journals Temporal Fluctuation of Mood in Gaming Task Modulates Feedback Negativity: EEG Study With Virtual Reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Yokota ◽  
Yasushi Naruse
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Reward Positivity ◽  
Feedback Negativity ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Positive And Negative Feedback ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Outcome Probability

Feedback outcomes are generally classified into positive and negative feedback. People often predict a feedback outcome with information that is based on both objective facts and uncertain subjective information, such as a mood. For example, if an action leads to good results consecutively, people performing the action overestimate the behavioral result of the next action. In electroencephalogram measurements, negative feedback evokes negative potential, called feedback negativity, and positive feedback evokes positive potential, called reward positivity. The present study investigated the relationship between the degree of the mood caused by the feedback outcome and the error-related brain potentials. We measured the electroencephalogram activity while the participants played a virtual reality shooting game. The experimental task was to shoot down a cannonball flying toward the player using a handgun. The task difficulty was determined from the size and curve of the flying cannonball. These gaming parameters affected the outcome probability of shooting the target in the game. We also implemented configurations in the game, such as the player’s life points and play times. These configurations affected the outcome magnitude of shooting the target in the game. Moreover, we used the temporal accuracy of shooting in the game as the parameter of the mood. We investigated the relationship between these experimental features and the event-related potentials using the single-trial-based linear mixed-effects model analysis. The feedback negativity was observed at an error trial, and its amplitude was modulated with the outcome probability and the mood. Conversely, reward positivity was observed at hit trials, but its amplitude was modulated with the outcome probability and outcome magnitude. This result suggests that feedback negativity is enhanced according to not only the feedback probability but also the mood that was changed depending on the temporal gaming outcome.

Affect Recognition Deficits in First Episode Schizophrenia and in Subjects with Anxiety Disorders: An ERP Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
M. Mazza ◽  
G. Lucci ◽  
R. Pollice ◽  
R. Roncone ◽  
M. Casacchia
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
First Episode ◽  
Psychotic Episode ◽  
Affect Recognition ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Chronic Patients ◽  
Related Potentials

Aims:Disturbances in affect recognition may be one of the most pervasive and serious aspects of the schizophrenic patient's interpersonal problems. Many of the studies used chronic patients, and therefore present difficulties in interpretation of results, due to the confounding influence of institutionalization, length of disease, cognitive deficits, and positive symptoms. If emotion recognition deficits are a core feature of schizophrenia, they should be apparent in a first-episode sample.Aim of the study was to examine affect recognition deficits in first psychotic episode and in young suffering of anxiety disorders (using a case-control design) during event-related potentials (ERPs).Method:Pictures from Ekman and Friesen series has been used in an ERPs study to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of the emotional processing of fear and happiness in patients with first episode (N°12) and in patients (N°12) with anxiety disorders versus healthy subjects. The three groups were compared using a visual oddball design.Results:Significant differences between groups in ERP components, the P100, N170, and N250 latency and amplitude differences for target stimuli faces were found. Significant differences were also observed in amplitude between positive and negative expression. First episode schizophrenic patients showed reduced amplitude in front of positive vs. negative stimuli. Anxious subjects did not show amplitude difference between the two kinds of emotional stimuli.Conclusion:We can hypothesized that subjects with first-episode show specific altered patterns of cognitive effort in the perception of different emotional stimuli compared to normal controls and subjects affected by anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals A Neurophysiological Measure of Reward Sensitivity and its Limited Association with Anhedonia in Adolescents and Young Adults

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Frank ◽  
Elise M. Stevens ◽  
Francesco Versace
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Signal Detection ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Reward Sensitivity ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Hedonic Capacity ◽  
Signal Detection Task

AbstractAnhedonia (i.e., the attenuated ability to enjoy pleasurable stimuli) characterizes multiple mood disorders, but its neurophysiological underpinnings are not yet clear. Here, we measured event-related potentials in 116 adolescents and young adults engaged in a signal detection task designed to objectively characterize the anhedonic phenotype. In line with previous studies, the behavioral results showed that approximately 35% of the sample did not develop a response bias towards the more frequently rewarded stimuli (a sign of low hedonic capacity). The event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the reward feedback stimuli delivered during the task showed that individuals that did not develop a response bias had significantly less cortical positivity at Fz from 224 ms to 316 ms post feedback onset compared to those that developed a response bias during the task. However, further analyses showed that this between groups difference was relatively weak, as it disappeared when we controlled for response-locked ERPs. Furthermore, the response bias observed in the signal detection task was not strongly associated with self-reported ratings of hedonic capacity. We conclude that even though the signal detection task may be used as a reward sensitivity measure in neurotypical adolescents and young adults, this task may only be able to detect clinically significant levels of anhedonia in this particular population.

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