Soutschek Alexander, Stelzel Christine, Paschke Lena, Walter Henrik, Schubert Torsten
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2015 Feb;27(2):409-23. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00712.
Previous studies suggest that both motivation and task difficulty expectations activate brain regions associated with cognitive control. However, it remains an open question whether motivational and cognitive determinants of control have similar or dissociable impacts on conflict processing on a neural level. The current study tested the effects of motivation and conflict expectancy on activity in regions related to processing of the target and the distractor information. Participants performed a picture-word interference task in which we manipulated the size of performance-dependent monetary rewards (level of motivation) and the ratio of congruent to incongruent trials within a block (level of conflict expectancy). Our results suggest that motivation improves conflict processing by facilitating task-relevant stimulus processing and task difficulty expectations mainly modulate the processing of distractor information. We conclude that motivation and conflict expectancy engage dissociable control strategies during conflict resolution.
先前的研究表明，动机和任务难度预期都会激活与认知控制相关的脑区。然而，控制的动机因素和认知因素在神经层面上对冲突处理是否具有相似或可分离的影响，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究测试了动机和冲突预期对与目标和干扰信息处理相关脑区活动的影响。参与者完成了一项图-词干扰任务，在该任务中，我们操纵了与表现挂钩的金钱奖励大小（动机水平）以及一个组块内一致试验与不一致试验的比例（冲突预期水平）。我们的结果表明，动机通过促进与任务相关的刺激处理来改善冲突处理，而任务难度预期主要调节干扰信息的处理。我们得出结论，在冲突解决过程中，动机和冲突预期采用了可分离的控制策略。
