Reward motivation robustly enhanced proactive cognitive control (p<0.001), whereas positive emotion had much weaker effects that also reflected a slight enhancement of proactive control.
Do reward motivation and positive emotion have distinct effects on cognitive control?
Reward motivation robustly enhances proactive cognitive control, whereas positive emotion has weaker and more heterogeneous effects.
p-value: p=<0.001
It is becoming increasingly appreciated that affective and/or motivational influences contribute strongly to goal-oriented cognition and behavior. An unresolved question is whether emotional manipulations (i.e., direct induction of affectively valenced subjective experience) and motivational manipulations (e.g., delivery of performance-contingent rewards and punishments) have similar or distinct effects on cognitive control. Prior work has suggested that reward motivation can reliably enhance a proactive mode of cognitive control, whereas other evidence is suggestive that positive emotion improves cognitive flexibility, but reduces proactive control. However, a limitation of the prior research is that reward motivation and positive emotion have largely been studied independently. Here, we directly compared the effects of positive emotion and reward motivation on cognitive control with a tightly matched, within-subjects design, using the AX-continuous performance task paradigm, which allows for relative measurement of proactive versus reactive cognitive control. High-resolution pupillometry was employed as a secondary measure of cognitive dynamics during task performance. Robust increases in behavioral and pupillometric indices of proactive control were observed with reward motivation. The effects of positive emotion were much weaker, but if anything, also reflected enhancement of proactive control, a pattern that diverges from some prior findings. These results indicate that reward motivation has robust influences on cognitive control, while also highlighting the complexity and heterogeneity of positive-emotion effects. The findings are discussed in terms of potential neurobiological mechanisms.
Chiew et al. (Mon,) conducted a other in Healthy (n=100). Reward motivation and positive emotion vs. Neutral emotion and baseline (no reward) was evaluated on Proactive control index (based on error rates and reaction times) (p=<0.001). Reward motivation robustly enhanced proactive cognitive control (p<0.001), whereas positive emotion had much weaker effects that also reflected a slight enhancement of proactive control.