Reward Counteracts Conflict Adaptation

Cognitive control adjustments are dependent on the level of conflict

The congruency sequence effect (CSE) is one of the most investigated effects in the cognitive control literature. The conflict monitoring theory suggests that the CSE is the result of adjustments in cognitive control based on perceived conflict. A recent paper by Zhang and colleagues, has investigated whether the manipulation of conflict level by changing distractor incompatibility in a flanker task affects the amount of adjustments in cognitive control. Their study produced mixed findings, somewhat supporting the original conflict monitoring theory, but also suggesting other explanations, such as the repetition expectancy account. We replicated the experimental design in a multisite online study (N = 347), with Hungarian, Italian, and Singaporean participants. Our results supported the prediction that changes in the level of conflict trigger conflict adaptation, revealing that increasing conflict levels induced stronger adaptive control. Bayesian hypothesis testing indicated a monotonic reduction in congruency effects as a function of previous conflict strength. This finding is in line with the extension of the traditional conflict monitoring theory, as well as other theories like affective signaling and expected value of control, implying that the relationship between conflict and interference effects is gradual, rather than a binary function.

Unraveling the influence of trial-based motivational changes on performance monitoring stages in a flanker task

Performance monitoring (PM) is a vital component of adaptive behavior and known to be influenced by motivation. We examined effects of potential gain (PG) and loss avoidance (LA) on neural correlates of PM at different processing stages, using a task with trial-based changes in these motivational contexts. Findings suggest more attention is allocated to the PG context, with higher amplitudes for respective correlates of stimulus and feedback processing. The PG context favored rapid responses, while the LA context emphasized accurate responses. Lower response thresholds in the PG context after correct responses derived from a drift-diffusion model also indicate a more approach-oriented response style in the PG context. This cognitive shift is mirrored in neural correlates: negative feedback in the PG context elicited a higher feedback-related negativity (FRN) and higher theta power, whereas positive feedback in the LA context elicited higher P3a and P3b amplitudes, as well as higher theta power. There was no effect of motivational context on response-locked brain activity. Given the similar frequency of negative feedback in both contexts, the elevated FRN and theta power in PG trials cannot be attributed to variations in reward prediction error. The observed variations in the FRN indicate that the effect of outcome valence is modulated by motivational salience.

Non-contingent affective outcomes influence judgments of control

Our main goal in these experiments was to examine whether affective valence plays a role in judgments of control (JoC) in intentional action. To test this, we asked participants to completevariationsofasimple aiming task in which words appeared in place of clicked targets. The affective content of the words was manipulated during the experiments but was not contingent on participants' performance. Throughout the task, participants were periodically asked to judge their JoC.Thus, JoC judgments in this task included contributions of a well-established cue to judgments of control, task performance, and a source of affect that was not related to task performance. We found thatmetacognitions of controlvaried consistentlyacross levels of affect, with stronger judgments of being in control for conditions with positive outcome words (e.g., 'puppy') and the weaker judgments of being in control for conditions with negative outcome words (e.g.,'killer').These results suggestaffective outcomes can influence JoC, even though the outcomes are not related to performance.

Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the differential effect of reward prospect on response selection and inhibition

Reward and cognitive control play crucial roles in shaping goal-directed behavior. Yet, the behavioral and neural underpinnings of interactive effects of both processes in driving our actions towards a particular goal have remained rather unclear. Given the importance of inhibitory control, we investigated the effect of reward prospect on the modulatory influence of automatic versus controlled processes during response inhibition. For this, a performance-contingent monetary reward for both correct response selection and response inhibition was added to a Simon NoGo task, which manipulates the relationship of automatic and controlled processes in Go and NoGo trials. A neurophysiological approach was used by combining EEG temporal signal decomposition and source localization methods. Compared to a non-rewarded control group, rewarded participants showed faster response execution, as well as overall lower response selection and inhibition accuracy (shifted speed-accuracy tradeoff). Interestingly, the reward group displayed a larger interference of the interactive effects of automatic versus controlled processes during response inhibition (i.e., a larger Simon NoGo effect), but not during response selection. The reward-specific behavioral effect was mirrored by the P3 amplitude, underlining the importance of stimulus-response association processes in explaining variability in response inhibition performance. The selective reward-induced neurophysiological modulation was associated with lower activation differences in relevant structures spanning the inferior frontal and parietal cortex, as well as higher activation differences in the somatosensory cortex. Taken together, this study highlights relevant neuroanatomical structures underlying selective reward effects on response inhibition and extends previous reports on the possible detrimental effect of reward-triggered performance trade-offs on cognitive control processes.

Phasic affective signals by themselves do not regulate cognitive control

Cognitive control is a set of mechanisms that help us process conflicting stimuli and maintain goal-relevant behaviour. According to the Affective Signalling Hypothesis, conflicting stimuli are aversive and thus elicit (negative) affect, moreover - to avoid aversive signals - affective and cognitive systems work together by increasing control and thus, drive conflict adaptation. Several studies have found that affective stimuli can indeed modulate conflict adaptation, however, there is currently no evidence that phasic affective states not triggered by conflict also trigger improved cognitive control. To investigate this possibility, we intermixed trials of a conflict task and trials involving the passive viewing of emotional words. We tested whether affective states induced by affective words in a given trial trigger improved cognitive control in a subsequent conflict trial. Applying Bayesian analysis, the results of four experiments supported the lack of adaptation to aversive signals, both in terms of valence and arousal. These results suggest that phasic affective states by themselves are not sufficient to elicit an increase in control.

Evaluating individual differences in rewarded Stroop performance: reliability and associations with self-report measures

In three separate experiments, we examined the reliability of and relationships between self-report measures and behavioral response time measures of reward sensitivity. Using a rewarded-Stroop task we showed that reward-associated, but task-irrelevant, information interfered with task performance (MIRA) in all three experiments, but individual differences in MIRA were unreliable both within-session and over a period of approximately 4 weeks, providing clear evidence that it is not a good individual differences measure. In contrast, when the task-relevant information was rewarded, individual differences in performance benefits were remarkably reliable, even when examining performance one year later, and with a different version of a rewarded Stroop task. Despite the high reliability of the behavioral measure of reward responsiveness, behavioral reward responsiveness was not associated with self-reported reward responsiveness scores using validated questionnaires but was associated with greater self-reported self-control. Results are discussed in terms of what is actually being measured in the rewarded Stroop task.

Performance-contingent reward increases the use of congruent distracting information

In conflict tasks like the Simon task, participants are instructed to respond to a task-relevant target dimension while ignoring additional distracting information. In the Simon task the distracting spatial information can be congruent or incongruent with the task-relevant target information, causing a congruency effect. As seen in the proportion congruency effect and the congruency sequence effect, this congruency effect is larger in mostly congruent blocks and following congruent trials, respectively. Common theories suggest that when the proportion of incongruent trials is high or after an incongruent trial, focus on the task-relevant target information is increased and distracting information is inhibited. In two experiments, we investigated how reward modulates these phenomena. Specifically, performance-contingent reward - but not non-contingent reward - increased the usage of the distracting information in mostly congruent blocks or following congruent trials, while the adaptation to incongruency (i.e., mostly incongruent blocks or preceding incongruent trials) was the same in all conditions. Additional diffusion model analyses found that this effect of performance-contingent reward was captured by the drift rate parameter. These results suggest an increased focus on the target information by incongruent trials independent from reward, while the adaptation to (mostly) congruent trials characterized by increased usage of distracting information can be motivationally boosted. That is, performance-contingent reward increases the use of congruent distracting information beyond a mere relaxation of the increased target-focus following (mostly) congruent trials.

The effects of executive functions on language control during Chinese-English emotional word code-switching

Executive functions (EFs) have great impact on language control indexed by language switch costs during production-based language switching. Yet, how they influence language control during comprehension-based language switching between embodied first language (L1, Chinese) emotional words and less embodied second language (L2, English) emotional words is less understood. Employing an emotional priming paradigm, this study recruited Chinese-English bilinguals as participants, and used emotional faces and words as experimental materials to explore the effects of cool [i.e., inhibitory control ability, IC ability] and hot (i.e., emotional valence and emotional congruency) EFs on language switch costs (i.e., language control) during Chinese-English emotional word comprehension. The results showed larger language switch costs in the emotional congruent condition relative to emotional conflict condition, larger Chinese switch costs than English switch costs, and larger language switch costs for negative over positive emotional words in the emotional congruent condition. In addition, high-IC participants showed larger English switch costs for negative emotional words compared with low-IC participants. These results indicated that hot EF and the embodiment of language had an impact on both language control and the modulation of cool EF on language control, and that the components of hot EFs interacted and jointly affected language control during language switching.

Well under control: Control demand changes are sufficient for metacontrol

Metacontrol arises from the efficient retrieval of cognitive control by environmental cues that are predictive of the upcoming control demands. Previous studies have demonstrated that proactive and reactive metacontrol can be indexed by a list-wide switch probability (LWSP) and an item-specific switch probability (ISSP) effect, respectively. However, what triggers metacontrol in the first place has not been clearly articulated. While a "mere-experience" hypothesis attributes metacontrol to changes in control demands, an "affective-signaling" hypothesis suggests that high control demands are aversive and aversiveness drives metacontrol. In two experiments, we adjudicated between these hypotheses by considering the modes of metacontrol (proactive vs. reactive) and temporal dynamics of background valence (sustained vs. transient and positive vs. negative). We induced metacontrol (proactive or reactive) in a task-switching paradigm and created background valence by using positive and negative images as stimuli. With valence being an irrelevant aspect of the task, the design allows us to test whether (task-irrelevant) background valence would modulate metacontrol. While we were able to replicate the LWSP effect in Experiment 1 and the ISSP effect in Experiment 2, we did not find valence modulating either effect, regardless of the background valence being a sustained (Experiment 1) or a transient one (Experiment 2). These findings together suggest that negative valence (i.e., aversiveness) does not necessarily benefit metacontrol, and control demand variations are sufficient to induce metacontrol.

The selective use of punishments on congruent versus incongruent trials in the Stroop task

Conflict adaptation refers to the dynamic modulation of conflict processing across successive trials and reflects improved cognitive control. Interestingly, aversive motivation can increase conflict adaptation, although it remains unclear through which process this modulation occurs because previous studies presented punishment feedback following suboptimal performance on both congruent and incongruent trials. According to integrative accounts of conflict monitoring and aversive motivation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, punishment feedback following slow or erroneous performance on incongruent trials in particular should lead to improved conflict adaptation. Second, selectively increasing motivation on incongruent trials should reduce the overall congruency effect. The current study sought to test both hypotheses. Specifically, we administered the confound-minimized Stroop task to a large group of participants and manipulated the position of feedback (following either congruent or incongruent trials) and aversive motivation (tied to a monetary loss or not) across different blocks. As expected, the congruency effect was found to be smaller when punishment was coupled with incongruent versus congruent trials. However, results showed that conflict adaptation was increased when punishment feedback was selectively coupled with congruent rather than incongruent trials. Together, these results suggest that aversive motivation does not uniformly improve cognitive control but this gain appears to be context dependent.

Modulation of Conflict Processing by Reappraisal: An Experimental Investigation

Negative affect facilitates conflict processing. Here we sought to assess whether symmetrically, its downregulation by means of reappraisal could lower it. To this end, 105 participants performed the confound-minimized Stroop task eliciting negative affect that was followed by a simple reward-related visual discrimination task. Conflict processing was induced with the former task. Half of them (experimental group) were instructed to use this second task to downregulate negative affect arising from the Stroop task. The other half (control group) did not receive these appraisal-related instructions. Group comparisons showed that negative affect and the conflict effect were similar for these two groups. However, when we added and modeled the subjective ratings related to emotion regulation, we found that conflict processing significantly improved for participants who reported using reappraisal spontaneously, and this gain occurred irrespective of negative affect. These results suggest that reappraisal can influence conflict processing but this change does not depend on negative affect.

Reward Modulates Unconsciously Triggered Adaptive Control Processes

Adaptive control (e.g., conflict adaptation) refers to dynamic adjustments of cognitive control processes in goal-directed behavior, which can be influenced by incentive rewards. Recently, accumulating evidence has shown that adaptive control processes can operate in the absence of conscious awareness, raising the question as to whether reward can affect unconsciously triggered adaptive control processes. Two experiments were conducted to address the question. In Experiment 1, participants performed a masked flanker-like priming task manipulated with high- and low-value performance-contingent rewards presented at the block level. In this experiment conflict awareness was manipulated by masking the conflict-inducing stimulus, and high- or low-value rewards were presented at the beginning of each block, and participants earned the reward contingent upon their responses in each trial. We observed a great conflict adaptation for high-value rewards in both conscious and unconscious conflict tasks, indicating reward-induced enhancements of consciously and unconsciously triggered adaptive control processes. Crucially, this effect still existed when controlling the stimulus-response repetitions in a rewarded masked Stroop-like priming task in Experiment 2. The results endorse the proposition that reward modulates unconsciously triggered adaptive control to conflict, suggesting that individuals may enable rewarding stimuli to dynamically regulate concurrent control processes based on previous conflict experience, regardless of whether the previous conflict was experienced consciously.

UCancellation: A new mobile measure of selective attention and concentration

Measuring selective attention in a speeded task can provide valuable insight into the concentration ability of an individual, and can inform neuropsychological assessment of attention in aging, traumatic brain injury, and in various psychiatric disorders. There are only a few tools to measure selective attention that are freely available, psychometrically validated, and can be used flexibly both for in-person and remote assessment. To address this gap, we developed a self-administrable, mobile-based test called “UCancellation” (University of California Cancellation), which was designed to assess selective attention and concentration and has two stimulus sets: Letters and Pictures. UCancellation takes less than 7 minutes to complete, is automatically scored, has multiple forms to allow repeated testing, and is compatible with a variety of iOS and Android devices. Here we report the results of a study that examined parallel-test reliability and convergent validity of UCancellation in a sample of 104 college students. UCancellation Letters and Pictures showed adequate parallel test reliability (r = .71–.83, p < 0.01) and internal consistency (ɑ = .73–.91). It also showed convergent validity with another widely used cancellation task, d2 Test of Attention (r = .43–.59, p < 0.01), and predicted performance on a cognitive control composite (r = .34–.41, p < 0.05). These results suggest that UCancellation is a valid test of selective attention and inhibitory control, which warrants further data collection to establish norms.

Effect of non-instructed instrumental contingency of monetary reward and positive affect in a cognitive control task

In recent years, we observed a strong interest in the influence of motivation and emotion on cognitive control. Prior studies suggest that the instrumental contingency between a response and a rewarding or affective stimulus is particularly important in that context-which is resonating with observations in the associative learning literature. However, despite this overlap, and the relevance of non-instructed learning in real life, the vast majority of studies investigating motivation-cognition interactions use direct instructions to inform participants about the contingencies between responses and stimuli. Thus, there is little experimental insight regarding how humans detect non-instructed contingencies between their actions and motivational or affective outcomes, and how these learned contingencies come to influence cognitive control processes. In an attempt to close this gap, the goal of the present study was to test the effect of non-instructed contingent and non-contingent outcomes (i.e. monetary reward and positive affective stimuli) on cognitive control using the AX-continuous performance task (AX-CPT) paradigm. We found that entirely non-instructed contingencies between responses and positive outcomes (both monetary and affective ones) led to significant performance improvement. The present results open new perspectives for studying the influence of motivation and emotion on cognitive control at the insertion with associative learning.

Ink colours as task-irrelevant information decrease memory accuracy with the Associative Memory Stroop Task

Previous research by Hazan-Liran & Miller (2017) developed a new Stroop-like task to examine how ink colours as task-irrelevant information affects paired-associate learning (see also Miller, Hazan-Liran, & Cohen, 2018). The task was to learn word-number pairs (e.g. blue-5) whilst only numbers were coloured in either congruent ink colours (e.g. number 5 printed in blue ink), incongruent ink colours (e.g. 5 printed in brown ink) or neutral ink colours (e.g. 5 printed in black ink). The present paper refers to this task as the Associative Memory Stroop Task (AMST). Hazan-Liran & Miller (2017) found that incongruent ink colours interfere and congruent ink colour facilitate the speed of learning word-number pairs. The present experiments employed the AMST to examine the effects of irrelevant ink colours (with colour names) on memory accuracy in cued recall and associative recognition. Memory impairment was found with incongruent ink colours on both memory tests whilst improved memory accuracy with congruent ink colours was not reliable. We discuss possible explanations for these findings.

Gaze towards my choice: Noneconomic social interaction changes interpersonal trust only with positive feedback

Trust is a crucial foundation of human society, dynamically changing along with interpersonal interactions. Previous research suggested that both gaze behaviors and affective states might influence our trust evaluation. Here, we created an uncertain decision-making environment to investigate how these two aspects change interpersonal trust during social interactions. Specifically, participants made a forced choice between two price-matched goods to determine which one was more expensive. After participants made a choice, the face in the center of the screen would gaze towards or away from the participants' choice, and then participants would receive timely feedback informing whether their choice was correct or not. In Experiment 1 (N = 34), we found people increased their trust ratings for gaze-followers but reduced them for gaze-unfollowers when they received positive feedback, but stayed with their initial judgments when receiving negative feedback. Experiment 2 (N = 20) and Experiment S1 (N = 20) further revealed the same change patterns on participants' trust investments in different conditions. These results suggest that gaze-following behavior can change people's trust evaluations as well as trust behaviors, while affective states induced by different feedback modulate this process in a flexible manner.

Examining the effect of perceived performance-contingent gains, losses and errors on arithmetic

Gains and losses have previously been found to differentially modulate Executive Functions and cognitive performance depending on performance contingency. Following recent findings suggesting that random gains and losses modulate arithmetic performance, the current study aimed to investigate the effect of perceived performance-contingent gains and losses on arithmetic performance. In the current study, an arithmetic equation judgment task was administered, with perceived performance-contingent gain, loss, and error feedback presented upon each trial. The results from two experiments suggest that when perceiving gain and loss as performance-contingent, the modulation of arithmetic performance, seen previously under random contingency conditions was entirely eliminated. In addition, another type of feedback was examined in the context of an arithmetic task: post-error adjustments. When performance after error feedback was compared to performance after other aversive performance feedback such as loss signals, only errors, but not other aversive feedback, modulated performance in the subsequent trial. These findings further extend the knowledge regarding the influence of gain and loss situations, as well as errors, on arithmetic performance.

Reduced flexibility of cognitive control: reactive, but not proactive control, underpins the congruency sequence effect

The congruency sequence effect (CSE) refers to facilitated conflict processing following incongruent than congruent trials, and reflects enhanced cognitive control during conflict processing. Although this effect is mostly conceived as being reactive, proactive control can also unlock it under specific circumstances according to previous studies (e.g., when an informative cue is used). However, whether or not humans can flexibly switch between these two complementing control modes remains unclear. To address this question, 55 participants completed the confound-minimized Stroop task in different blocks where the cue about the upcoming trial's congruency was either informative or not, and orthogonally to it, the cue-stimulus interval (CSI) was either short or long. We tested if the size of the CSE could change depending on the specific combination of these two factors, which would indicate that cognitive control depends on the subtle balance between reactive and proactive control, and is therefore flexible. However, results showed that the CSE was significant and comparable across the four combinations of CSI and Cue type, suggesting that it primarily stemmed from reactive control. We discuss our results against the dual mechanism of control (DMC) framework (Braver in Trends Cogn Sci 16:106-113, 2012).

Conflict monitoring and the affective-signaling hypothesis-An integrative review

Conflict-monitoring theory proposes that conflict between incompatible responses is registered by a dedicated monitoring system, and that this conflict signal triggers changes of attentional filters and adapts control processes according to the current task demands. Extending the conflict-monitoring theory, it has been suggested that conflict elicits a negative affective reaction, and that it is this affective signal that is monitored and then triggers control adaptation. This review article summarizes research on a potential signaling function of affect for cognitive control. First, we provide an overview of the conflict-monitoring theory, discuss neurophysiological and behavioral markers of monitoring and control adaptation, and introduce the affective-signaling hypothesis. In a second part, we review relevant studies that address the questions of (i) whether conflict elicits negative affect, (ii) whether negative affect is monitored, and (iii) whether affect modulates control. In sum, the reviewed literature supports the claim that conflict and errors trigger negative affect and provides some support for the claim that affect modulates control. However, studies on the monitoring of negative affect and the influence of phasic affect on control are ambiguous. On the basis of these findings, in a third part, we critically reassess the affective-signaling hypothesis, discuss relevant challenges to this account, and suggest future research strategies.

Polarities influence implicit associations between colour and emotion

Colours are linked to emotional concepts. Research on the effect of red in particular has been extensive, and evidence shows that positive as well as negative associations can be salient in different contexts. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the contextual factor of polarity. According to the polarity-correspondence principle, negative and positive category poles are assigned to the binary response categories (here positive vs. negative valence) and the perceptual dimension (green vs. red) in a discrimination task. Response facilitation occurs only where the conceptual category (valence) and the perceptual feature (colour) share the same pole (i.e., where both are plus or both are minus). We asked participants (n = 140) to classify the valence of green and red words within two types of blocks: (a) where all words were of the same colour (monochromatic conditions) providing no opposition in the perceptual dimension, and (b) where red and green words were randomly mixed (mixed-colour conditions). Our results show that red facilitates responses to negative words when the colour green is present (mixed-colour conditions) but not when it is absent (monochromatic conditions). This is in line with the polarity-correspondence principle, but colour-specific valence-affect associations contribute to the found effects.

Proactive engagement of cognitive control modulates implicit approach-avoidance bias

Implicit social-affective biases-reflected in a propensity to approach positive and avoid negative stimuli-have been documented in humans with paradigms, such as the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT). However, the degree to which preemptively engaging cognitive control can help to down-regulate those behavioral tendencies remains poorly understood. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 24 healthy participants completed a cued version of the AAT, in which they responded to pictures of happy or angry faces by pulling a joystick toward themselves (approach) or pushing the joystick away (avoidance) based on the color of the stimulus frame. On some trials, they were cued to reverse the frame color/joystick action instructions. Before stimulus onset, a reverse cue was associated with deactivation of a visuo-spatial and motor planning network and subsequent slowing down in response to stimuli. During the stimulus phase, a reverse cue was associated with a) activation of cognitive control areas, including the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and right inferior parietal lobule (IPL); and b) reduced right precentral gyrus activation when having to push (avoid) a happy face. Overall, these results suggest that proactively engaging cognitive control can help fine-tune behavioral and neural adjustment to emotionally incongruent behavioral conditions.

The role of the opioid system in decision making and cognitive control: A review

The opioid system regulates affective processing, including pain, pleasure, and reward. Restricting the role of this system to hedonic modulation may be an underestimation, however. Opioid receptors are distributed widely in the human brain, including the more “cognitive” regions in the frontal and parietal lobes. Nonhuman animal research points to opioid modulation of cognitive and decision-making processes. We review emerging evidence on whether acute opioid drug modulation in healthy humans can influence cognitive function, such as how we choose between actions of different values and how we control our behavior in the face of distracting information. Specifically, we review studies employing opioid agonists or antagonists together with experimental paradigms of reward-based decision making, impulsivity, executive functioning, attention, inhibition, and effort. Although this field is still in its infancy, the emerging picture suggests that the mu-opioid system can influence higher-level cognitive function via modulation of valuation, motivation, and control circuits dense in mu-opioid receptors, including orbitofrontal cortex, basal ganglia, amygdalae, anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex. The framework that we put forward proposes that opioids influence decision making and cognitive control by increasing the subjective value of reward and reducing aversive arousal. We highlight potential mechanisms that might underlie the effects of mu-opioid signaling on decision making and cognitive control and provide directions for future research.

Striatal-frontal network activation during voluntary task selection under conditions of monetary reward

During voluntary task selection, a number of internal and external biases may guide such a choice. However, it is not well understood how reward influences task selection when multiple options are possible. To address this issue, we examined brain activation in a voluntary task-switching paradigm while participants underwent fMRI (n = 19). To reinforce the overall goal to choose the tasks randomly, participants were told of a large bonus that they would receive at the end of the experiment for making random task choices. We also examined how occasional, random rewards influenced both task performance and brain activation. We hypothesized that these transient rewards would increase the value of the just-performed task, and therefore bias participants to choose to repeat the same task on the subsequent trial. Contrary to expectations, transient reward had no consistent behavioral effect on subsequent task choice. Nevertheless, the receipt of such rewards did influence activation in brain regions associated with reward processing as well as those associated with goal-directed control. In addition, reward on a prior trial was found to influence activation during task choice on a subsequent trial, with greater activation in a number of executive function regions compared with no-reward trials. We posit that both the random presentation of transient rewards and the overall task bonus for random task choices together reinforced the goal to choose the tasks randomly, which in turn influenced activation in both reward-related regions and those regions involved in abstract goal processing.

A direct and conceptual replication of post-loss speeding when gambling

To investigate the response to suboptimal outcomes, Verbuggen et al. (Verbruggen F, Chambers CD, Lawrence NS, McLaren IPL. 2017 Winning and losing: effects on impulsive action. J. Exp. Psychol.: Hum. Percept. Perform. 43, 147. (doi:10.1037/xhp0000284)) conducted a study in which participants chose between a gamble and a non-gamble option. The non-gamble option was a guaranteed amount of points, whereas the gamble option was associated with a higher amount but a lower probability of winning. The authors observed that participants initiated the next trial faster after a loss compared to wins or non-gambles. In the present study, we directly replicated these findings in the laboratory and online. We also designed another task controlling for the number of trials per outcome. In this task, participants guessed where a reward was hidden. They won points if they selected the correct location, but lost points if they selected the incorrect location. We included neutral trials as a baseline. Again, participants sped up after a loss relative to wins and neutral trials (but only with a response choice in neutral trials and a large sample size). These findings appear inconsistent with cognitive-control frameworks, which assume that suboptimal outcomes typically lead to slower responses; instead, they suggest that suboptimal outcomes can invigorate behaviour, consistent with accounts of frustrative non-reward and impulsive action.

Situation selection and cognitive conflict: explicit knowledge is necessary for conflict avoidance

Humans transform their environment in order to regulate their own affect. One way to do so is to avoid situations that come with negative rather than positive affect. This selection might not solely bear on expectations of full-blown emotions, but may also be invoked by anticipating the aversiveness of cognitive conflict, when a situation suggests competing behavioural responses. If cognitive conflict is indeed aversive, it may trigger affect regulation goals, which in turn influence choices of situations depending on the magnitude of conflict they contain. People should prefer actions that produce conflict-free situations to actions that produce conflicting situations. In three experiments, participants had to solve a Stroop task by freely choosing between response keys that were either associated with low-conflict or high-conflict in the subsequent trial. We find that people do not automatically prefer actions associated with conflict-free situations to actions that are associated with conflicting situations. They only do so, when they are explicitly informed about the contingency between action and congruency of an upcoming situation. This suggests that cognitive conflict, at least at the level of a standard conflict task as used here, is insufficient to invoke affect regulation processes.

Emotion and conflict adaptation: the role of phasic arousal and self-relevance

Conflict adaptation reflects the increase in cognitive control after previous conflict between task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. Tonic (sustained) arousal elicited by emotional words embedded in a conflict task has previously been shown to increase conflict adaptation. However, the role of phasic (transient) emotional arousal remains unclear. In Experiment 1 (N = 55), we therefore investigated the effect of phasic arousal using a colour flanker task with negative, positive, and neutral words as stimuli. We hypothesised that phasic arousal elicited in this context will increase conflict adaptation in the subsequent trial. Indeed, when the words were positive or negative as compared to neutral, we observed increased conflict adaptation. In Experiment 2 (N = 54), we examined the role of the self-relevance by presenting words with a self-related pronoun ("my") or sender-related pronoun ("his"/"her"). We expected that emotional words with high self-relevance would lead to stronger effects of emotional arousal on conflict adaptation. Confirming this hypothesis, results showed that emotional words within a self-related context again increased conflict adaptation, whereas this effect was not observed in the sender-related context. Taken together, these results are the first to show that phasic arousal elicited by emotional words increases conflict adaptation, in particular when these words have high self-relevance.

A computational perspective on the roles of affect in cognitive control

Previous work has demonstrated that cognitive control can be influenced by affect, both when it is tied to the anticipated outcomes for cognitive performance (integral affect) and when affect is induced independently of performance (incidental affect). However, the mechanisms through which such interactions occur remain debated, in part because they have yet to be formalized in a way that allows experimenters to test quantitative predictions of a putative mechanism. To generate such predictions, we leveraged a recent model that determines cognitive control allocation by weighing potential costs and benefits in order to determine the overall Expected Value of Control (EVC). We simulated potential accounts of how integral and incidental affect might influence this valuation process, including whether incidental positive affect influences how difficult one perceives a task to be, how effortful it feels to exert control, and/or the marginal utility of succeeding at the task. We find that each of these accounts makes dissociable predictions regarding affect's influence on control allocation and measures of task performance (e.g., conflict adaptation, switch costs). We discuss these findings in light of the existing empirical findings and theoretical models. Collectively, this work grounds existing theories regarding affect-control interactions, and provides a method by which specific predictions of such accounts can be confirmed or refuted based on empirical data.

The face of control: Corrugator supercilii tracks aversive conflict signals in the service of adaptive cognitive control

Cognitive control is the ability to monitor, evaluate, and adapt behavior in the service of long‐term goals. Recent theories have proposed that the integral negative emotions elicited by conflict are critical for the adaptive adjustment of cognitive control. However, evidence for the negative valence of conflict in cognitive control tasks mainly comes from behavioral studies that interrupted trial sequences, making it difficult to directly test the link between conflict‐induced affect and subsequent increases in cognitive control. In the present study, we therefore use online measures of valence‐sensitive electromyography (EMG) of the facial corrugator (frowning) and zygomaticus (smiling) muscles while measuring the adaptive cognitive control in a Stroop‐like task. In line with the prediction that conflict is aversive, results showed that conflict relative to non‐conflict trials led to increased activity of the corrugator muscles after correct responses, both in a flanker task (Experiment 1) and in a prime‐probe task (Experiment 2). This conflict‐induced corrugator activity effect correlated marginally with conflict‐driven increases in cognitive control in the next trial in the confound‐minimalized task used in Experiment 2. However, in the absence of performance feedback (Experiment 3), no reliable effect of conflict was observed in the facial muscle activity despite robust behavioral conflict adaptation. Taken together, our results show that facial EMG can be used as an indirect index of the temporal dynamics of conflict‐induced aversive signals and/or effortful processes in particular when performance feedback is presented, providing important new insights into the dynamic affective nature of cognitive control.

Cognitive control plays a pivotal role in goal‐directed behavior. Nevertheless, it still remains elusive what mechanisms determine how cognitive control is recruited. Recent theories have proposed that negative emotions elicited by conflict help to adaptively increase the cognitive control. Although there is indeed accumulating evidence for the negative valence of conflict, no study has yet linked this directly to increased adaptive control. Using valence‐sensitive EMG measures, we here show that conflict is associated with increased activation of the corrugator (frowning) muscle and that the size of this effect predicts the size of conflict‐driven control adjustment in the next trial.

Clarifying the Role of Negative Emotions in the Origin and Control of Impulsive Actions

This critical review elaborates on the origin of impulsive actions and how these can be controlled. We focus in particular on the role of negative events. First, we outline how impulsive actions often originate from negative events that are (emotionally) appraised. A discrepancy between this current state and a desired goal state leads to action tendencies. The urgency of the resulting action depends on the importance of the goal and the size of the discrepancy. Second, we discuss how such impulsive actions can be regulated or controlled e.g. by biasing competition between different options, or by completely suppressing all motor output. Importantly, such control mechanisms might also depend on emotional factors. To reconcile these findings, we present a coherent theoretical framework, taking into account various cognitive, affective, and motivational mechanisms as well as contextual factors that play a crucial role in the origin and control of impulsive actions.

Funny kittens: Positive mood induced via short video-clips affects error processing but not conflict control

The interplay of performance monitoring functions and affective variables labeled as moods or emotions has been investigated within different theoretical frameworks including conflict adaptation and reinforcement learning. However, results regarding the electrophysiological underpinnings of performance monitoring such as the error-related negativity (ERN), the N200 or the error positivity (Pe) remain largely inconsistent. While some studies report ERN enhancements after positive mood induction, others find reductions due to positive affect. An additional source of complexity regards the manifold induction methods across studies. Here, we investigated whether performance-independent, blocked mood inductions via mini-clips alter electrophysiological markers of performance monitoring. Positive clips consisted of a pre-rated collection of human and animal funny/fail videos, while neutral clips showed natural scenes of humans and animals or sport events. The main task was a modified flanker paradigm. The effectivity of mood induction was confirmed via recorded skin conductance response (SCR), facial-muscle electromyogram (EMG) and intermittent subjective mood questionnaires. Regarding interference control neither reaction times nor error rates were influenced by mood induction, similarly no mood effects of the N2 component were observed. In contrast, we found enhanced ERN as well as Pe amplitudes in the positive compared to the neutral condition. Additional to post error slowing we found increased interference effects after errors in positive blocks on the behavioral level. The results suggest a specific receptiveness of evaluative control components to positive affect that will be discussed regarding their possible neuronal underpinnings.

Effective connectivity modulations related to win and loss outcomes

Previous studies have characterized the brain regions involved in encoding monetary reward and punishment outcomes. The question of how this information is integrated across brain regions has received less attention. Here, we investigated changes in effective connectivity related to the processing of positive and negative monetary outcomes using functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project. Specifically, subjects engaged in a card guessing game which could yield win, loss, or neutral outcomes. A general linear model was used to define a network of regions involved in win and loss outcome processing, including anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and ventral striatum. Dynamic causal modelling (DCM) was implemented to study between-region couplings and outcome-related modulations thereof within this network. In addition, we explored the relation between effective connectivity patterns and choice behavior in the gambling task. Parametric empirical Bayesian modelling was conducted for group-level inferences of both DCM and the choice behavior. Behaviorally, both win and loss outcomes increased the probability of choice switches in subsequent gambles. In terms of connectivity, win outcomes were associated with increased extrinsic connectivity across the network, while loss outcomes featured a balance between increased and decreased extrinsic connectivity. Moreover, self-inhibitory connections tended to decrease for both win and loss outcomes. Interestingly, a substantial discrepancy was observed for occipital cortex connectivity, which was characterized by intrinsic disinhibition in loss but not in win trials. The observed differences in effective connectivity during the processing of positive and negative outcomes, despite similarities in average regional activity and choice behavior, highlight the value of exploring network dynamics in the context of incentive manipulations.

Temporal dynamics of error-related corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major activity: Evidence for implicit emotion regulation following errors

According to feedback control models, errors are monitored and inform subsequent control adaptations. Despite these cognitive consequences, errors also have affective consequences. It has been suggested that errors elicit negative affect which might be functional for control adaptations. The present research is concerned with the temporal dynamics of error-related affect. Therefore, we ask how affective responses to errors change over time. Two experiments assessed performance in a Stroop-like task in combination with online measures of facial electromyography that index affective responses specific for muscles that are associated with the expression of negative (corrugator supercilii) and positive affect (zygomaticus major). After errors, corrugator activity first increased relative to correct trials but then decreased (below correct trials) for later time bins. Zygomaticus activity showed a concomitant inverse pattern following errors, such that an initial decrease was followed by a later increase relative to correct trials. Together, this biphasic response in both facial muscles suggests that early negative responses to errors turn into increasingly more positive ones over time. Error-triggered electromyography did marginally predict behavioral adjustments following errors at the inter-individual, but not at the intra-individual level, providing only limited evidence for a functional role of error-related affect for immediate changes in behavior. However, the dynamics of error-related electromyography points to the role of implicit emotion regulation during task performance. We propose that this process helps to maintain homeostasis of positive and negative affect which in the long term could facilitate adaptive behavior.

Conflict-Elicited Negative Evaluations of Neutral Stimuli: Testing Overt Responses and Stimulus-Frequency Differences as Critical Side Conditions

Prior research has shown that a stimulus signaling a conflict (such as an incongruent Stroop stimulus) as a prime can elicit more negative evaluations of an otherwise neutral and unrelated stimulus as a target. Yet, there are many side conditions that could at least partly be responsible for such effects like the frequencies of congruent and conflicting stimuli or overt responses to the conflicting stimuli. Here, we tested the influences of stimulus frequencies and overt responses on the strength of this priming effect. In four experiments, we demonstrate that overt responses in-between prime and target do not delete the conflict-elicited evaluation effect (Experiments 1a vs. 1b), while an overall higher frequency of conflicting trials (Experiment 2a) and an overall lower frequency of congruent trials (Experiment 3) can both abolish the priming effect. In contrast, a higher frequency of specific conflicting conditions was ineffective (Experiment 2b). Together, our results confirm that conflict is indeed the origin of the priming of negative evaluations.

Expected Value of Control and the Motivational Control of Habitual Action

A hallmark of habitual actions is that, once they are established, they become insensitive to changes in the values of action outcomes. In this article, we review empirical research that examined effects of posttraining changes in outcome values in outcome-selective Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) tasks. This review suggests that cue-instigated action tendencies in these tasks are not affected by weak and/or incomplete revaluation procedures (e.g., selective satiety) and substantially disrupted by a strong and complete devaluation of reinforcers. In a second part, we discuss two alternative models of a motivational control of habitual action: a default-interventionist framework and expected value of control theory. It is argued that the default-interventionist framework cannot solve the problem of an infinite regress (i.e., what controls the controller?). In contrast, expected value of control can explain control of habitual actions with local computations and feedback loops without (implicit) references to control homunculi. It is argued that insensitivity to changes in action outcomes is not an intrinsic design feature of habits but, rather, a function of the cognitive system that controls habitual action tendencies.

Negative Emotional Stimuli Enhance Conflict Resolution Without Altering Arousal

In our daily life, we frequently need to make decisions between competing behavioral options while we are exposed to various contextual factors containing emotional/social information. We examined how changes in emotional/arousal state influence resolving conflict between behavioral rules. Visual stimuli with emotional content (positive, negative and neutral) and music (High/Low tempo), which could potentially alter emotional/arousal states, were included in the task context while participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The WCST requires the application of abstract matching rules, to resolve conflict between competing behavioral options. We found that conflict influenced both accuracy and response time (RT) in implementing rules. Measuring event-related autonomic responses indicated that these behavioral effects were accompanied by concomitant alterations in arousal levels. Performance in the WCST was modulated by the emotional content of visual stimuli and appeared as a faster response and higher accuracy when trials commenced with negative emotional stimuli. These effects were dependent on the level of conflict but were not accompanied by changes in arousal levels. Here, we report that visual stimuli with emotional content influence conflict processing without trial-by-trial changes in arousal level. Our findings indicate intricate interactions between emotional context and various aspects of executive control such as conflict resolution and suggest that these interactions are not necessarily mediated through alterations in arousal level.

Dynamic adjustments in working memory in the face of affective interference

Cognitive control, which allows for the selection and monitoring of goal-relevant behavior, is dynamically upregulated on the basis of moment-to-moment cognitive demands. One route by which these demands are registered by cognitive control systems is via the detection of response conflict. Yet working memory (WM) demands may similarly signal dynamic adjustments in cognitive control. In a delayed-recognition WM task, Jha and Kiyonaga (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 36(4), 1036-1042, 2010) demonstrated dynamic adjustments in cognitive control via manipulations of mnemonic load and delay-spanning cognitive interference. In the present study, we aimed to extend prior work by investigating whether affective interference may similarly upregulate cognitive control. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 89) completed a delayed-recognition WM task in which mnemonic load (memory load of one vs. two items) and delay-spanning affective interference (neutral vs. negative distractors) were manipulated in a factorial design. Consistent with Jha and Kiyonaga, the present results revealed that mnemonic load led to dynamic adjustments in cognitive control, as reflected by greater performance on trials preceded by high than by low load. In addition, we observed that affective interference could trigger dynamic adjustments in cognitive control, as evinced by higher performance on trials preceded by negative than by neutral distractors. These findings were subsequently confirmed in Experiment 2, which was a pre-registered replication study (N = 100). Thus, these results suggest that in addition to dynamic adjustments as a function of mnemonic load, affective interference, similar to cognitive interference (Jha & Kiyonaga Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 36(4), 1036-1042, 2010), may trigger dynamic adjustments in cognitive control during a WM task.

Affect and control: A conceptual clarification

Converging evidence seems to suggest that affect and cognitive control are related in interesting ways, and some researchers have suggested that affect may play a causal, or at least otherwise interesting role in cognitive control. Here I discuss reasons to believe that these claims are either unfounded or based on a conceptual misunderstanding. They are unfounded with respect to the role of conscious affective experience, which is not supported by any unequivocal evidence. And they are based on a conceptual misunderstanding with respect to unconscious affect: Given the strong conceptual overlap between affect on the one hand and cognitive control on the other, finding mechanisms that are shared by affect and control is an almost necessary outcome that does not provide any mechanistic insight but merely reflects the semantic overlap between the concepts. However, this overlap may be taken to expand our research perspective and take affect-related and control-related outcomes as equivalent markers of one underlying function that encompasses, and thus goes beyond the traditional concept of affect and control.

Affect and cognitive control: Insights from research on effort mobilization

We present theory and research on effort mobilization that is relevant for understanding the role of affect in cognitive control. We posit that cognitive control and effort are closely related and introduce motivational intensity theory and supporting empirical evidence mainly based on cardiovascular measures of effort. Most important, we discuss the role of affect in the context of effort mobilization and cognitive control from different perspectives. We first present theories predicting affective influences on effort, namely the mood-behavior-model and the implicit-affect-primes-effort model, and supporting empirical evidence. Second, we discuss further implications of the resource conservation principle highlighting the aversive aspect of effort and review evidence for the impact of value and its affective component on effort and cognitive control. Finally, we present a recent integration of the neural mechanisms underlying both effort and cognitive control. We conclude that affective processes are necessary and instrumental for both effort mobilization and cognitive control.

Monitoring and control in multitasking

The idea that conflict detection triggers control adjustments has been considered a basic principle of cognitive control. So far, this "conflict-control loop" has mainly been investigated in the context of response conflicts in single tasks. In this theoretical position paper, we explore whether, and how, this principle might be involved in multitasking performance, as well. We argue that several kinds of conflict-control loops can be identified in multitasking at multiple levels (e.g., the response level and the task level), and we provide a selective review of empirical observations. We present examples of conflict monitoring and control adjustments in dual-task and task-switching paradigms, followed by a section on error monitoring and posterror adjustments in multitasking. We conclude by outlining future research questions regarding monitoring and control in multitasking, including the potential roles of affect and associative learning for conflict-control loops in multitasking.

Affective Influence on Context-Specific Proportion Congruent (CSPC) Effect

Congruency effects diminish in contexts associated with mostly incongruent trials compared with contexts associated with mostly congruent trials. Here, we aimed to assess affective influences on this context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effect. We presented either neutral or affective faces as context stimuli in a Flanker task and associated mostly incongruent trials with male/female faces for a neutral-context group and with angry/happy faces for a affective-context group. To assess general influences of affective valence, we compared CSPC effects between the neutral-context group and the affective-context group. To assess valence-specific influences, we compared the size of CSPC effects - for the affective-context group only - between participants for whom mostly incongruent trials were associated with angry faces and participants for whom mostly incongruent trials were associated with happy faces. However, the modulating influence on the CSPC effect from affective versus neutral contexts or from valence-proportion mappings was not statistically significant.

RETRACTED: Auditory (dis-)fluency triggers sequential processing adjustments

An increasing amount of studies indicates that experiencing increased task demands, triggered for example by conflicting stimulus features or low perceptual fluency, lead to processing adjustments. While these demand-triggered processing adjustments have been shown for different paradigms (e.g., response conflict tasks, perceptual disfluency, task switching, dual tasking), most of them are restricted to the visual modality. The present study investigated as to whether the challenge to understand speech signals in normal-hearing subjects would also lead to sequential processing adjustments if the processing fluency of the respective auditory signals changes from trial to trial. To that end, we used spoken number words (one to nine) that were either presented with high (clean speech) or low perceptual fluency (i.e., vocoded speech as used in cochlear implants-Experiment 1; speech embedded in multi-speaker babble noise as typically found in bars-Experiment 2). Participants had to judge the spoken number words as smaller or larger than five. Results show that the fluency effect (performance difference between high and low perceptual fluency) in both experiments was smaller following disfluent words. Thus, if it's hard to understand, you try harder.

Exploring the temporal boundary conditions of the articulatory in-out preference effect

Earlier research has documented a preference for words with consonantal articulation patterns that move from the front to the back of the mouth (e.g., MENIKA) over words with reversely wandering consonantal articulation spots (e.g., KENIMA). The present experiments explored the temporal dynamics of the reading process in this in-out preference effect. In three experiments (total N = 344), we gradually reduced the presentation durations of inward and outward wandering words from 1000 ms down to 25 ms to approximate the minimum length of visual stimulus presentation required to trigger the effect. The in-out effect was reliably observed for exposure timings down to 50 ms, but vanished for 25 ms timings, which is line with previous evidence on phonological encoding. Thus, impressively, 50 ms of word presentation is sufficient to evoke the in-out effect. These findings suggest phonological activation to be a prerequisite and thus a driving mechanism of the in-out effect.