Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO, USA.
Front Psychol. 2013 Jan 29;4:15. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00015. eCollection 2013.
Motivational manipulations, such as the presence of performance-contingent reward incentives, can have substantial influences on cognitive control. Previous evidence suggests that reward incentives may enhance cognitive performance specifically through increased preparatory, or proactive, control processes. The present study examined reward influences on cognitive control dynamics in the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), using high-resolution pupillometry. In the AX-CPT, contextual cues must be actively maintained over a delay in order to appropriately respond to ambiguous target probes. A key feature of the task is that it permits dissociable characterization of preparatory, proactive control processes (i.e., utilization of context) and reactive control processes (i.e., target-evoked interference resolution). Task performance profiles suggested that reward incentives enhanced proactive control (context utilization). Critically, pupil dilation was also increased on reward incentive trials during context maintenance periods, suggesting trial-specific shifts in proactive control, particularly when context cues indicated the need to overcome the dominant target response bias. Reward incentives had both transient (i.e., trial-by-trial) and sustained (i.e., block-based) effects on pupil dilation, which may reflect distinct underlying processes. The transient pupillary effects were present even when comparing against trials matched in task performance, suggesting a unique motivational influence of reward incentives. These results suggest that pupillometry may be a useful technique for investigating reward motivational signals and their dynamic influence on cognitive control.
动机操控,如表现相关的奖励激励的存在,可以对认知控制产生重大影响。先前的证据表明,奖励激励可能通过增加预备性或前摄性控制过程来提高认知表现。本研究使用高分辨率瞳孔测量法,考察了奖励对 AX-连续绩效任务 (AX-CPT) 中的认知控制动态的影响。在 AX-CPT 中,上下文线索必须在延迟期间主动维持,以便对模棱两可的目标探针做出适当反应。该任务的一个关键特征是,它允许对预备性、前摄性控制过程(即上下文的利用)和反应性控制过程(即目标引发的干扰解决)进行可区分的特征化。任务绩效分布表明,奖励激励增强了前摄性控制(上下文利用)。关键的是,在奖励激励试验期间,瞳孔扩张在上下文维持期间也增加了,这表明前摄性控制的特定试验转变,特别是当上下文线索表明需要克服主导的目标反应偏差时。奖励激励对瞳孔扩张有短暂(即逐次试验)和持续(即基于块)的影响,这可能反映了不同的潜在过程。即使在与任务表现相匹配的试验进行比较时,也存在短暂的瞳孔效应,这表明奖励激励具有独特的动机影响。这些结果表明,瞳孔测量法可能是一种有用的技术,可以研究奖励动机信号及其对认知控制的动态影响。