Department of Psychology, University of York, UK.
Laboratory of Neuroimaging and Innovative Molecular Tracers (NIMTlab), Faculty of Medicine, Geneva University Neurocenter, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
J Neuropsychol. 2022 Jun;16(2):407-433. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12272. Epub 2022 Jan 11.
Recent insights show that increased motivation can benefit executive control, but this effect has not been explored in relation to semantic cognition. Patients with deficits of controlled semantic retrieval in the context of semantic aphasia (SA) after stroke may benefit from this approach since 'semantic control' is considered an executive process. Deficits in this domain are partially distinct from the domain-general deficits of cognitive control. We assessed the effect of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in healthy controls and SA patients. Experiment 1 manipulated extrinsic reward using high or low levels of points for correct responses during a semantic association task. Experiment 2 manipulated the intrinsic value of items using self-reference, allocating pictures of items to the participant ('self') or researcher ('other') in a shopping game before participants retrieved their semantic associations. These experiments revealed that patients, but not controls, showed better performance when given an extrinsic reward, consistent with the view that increased external motivation may help ameliorate patients' semantic control deficits. However, while self-reference was associated with better episodic memory, there was no effect on semantic retrieval. We conclude that semantic control deficits can be reduced when extrinsic rewards are anticipated; this enhanced motivational state is expected to support proactive control, for example, through the maintenance of task representations. It may be possible to harness this modulatory impact of reward to combat the control demands of semantic tasks in SA patients.
最近的研究表明，增加动机可以有益于执行控制，但这种效应在语义认知方面尚未得到探索。在中风后语义失语症（SA）患者中，由于“语义控制”被认为是一种执行过程，因此控制语义检索的缺陷可能会受益于这种方法。该领域的缺陷与认知控制的一般领域缺陷部分不同。我们评估了外在动机和内在动机对健康对照组和 SA 患者的影响。实验 1 通过在语义联想任务中使用正确反应的高低分来操纵外在奖励。实验 2 通过使用自我参照来操纵项目的内在价值，在参与者检索语义联想之前，将项目的图片分配给参与者（“自我”）或研究人员（“他人”）。这些实验表明，患者而非对照组在给予外在奖励时表现更好，这与增加外部动机可能有助于改善患者的语义控制缺陷的观点一致。然而，虽然自我参照与更好的情景记忆有关，但对语义检索没有影响。我们得出结论，当预期外在奖励时，语义控制缺陷可以减少；这种增强的动机状态有望支持主动控制，例如通过保持任务表示。有可能利用奖励的这种调节作用来对抗 SA 患者语义任务的控制需求。
