Individuals in depressed status respond abnormally to reward stimuli, but the neural processes involved remain unclear. Whether this neural response affects subsequent cognitive processing activities remains to be explored. In the current study, participants, screened as depressed status individuals and healthy individuals by Beck Depression Inventory and Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale, performed both a door task and a cognitive task. Specifically, in each trial, they selected one from two identical doors based on the expectations of rewards and punishments (...) and received the rewarded or punished feedback, and then they performed a cognitive task in which they judged the correctness of a math equation. The neural responses of their choice in the door task were recorded. The results showed that when the two groups received punished feedback, their accuracy was significantly higher than they received rewarded feedback. Compared with the healthy group, the depressed status group spent more time completing cognitive tasks. Analysis of electroencephalography data showed that the amplitude of RewP induced by rewarded feedback was larger than that induced by punished feedback, and the amplitude of RewP and fb-P3 induced by the depressed status group was smaller than that of the healthy group. The results of an order analysis showed that the main effects of group variable in fb-P3 and RewP appeared in the second half of the data, and the main effect of feedback type in RewP appeared in the first half of the data. The results showed that the neural response of individuals in depressed status to reward and punishment stimuli was weakened compared with healthy individuals and affected the subsequent cognitive processing to some extent. The effect of feedback appeared in the early stage and gradually decreased. The neural response of individuals in depressed status had a cumulative effect, and the differences appeared in the later stage. The results of this study support the emotional situation insensitive hypothesis, that is, individuals in depressed status are less sensitive to reward and punishment than healthy individuals. (shrink)

The experience of a reward appears to enhance memory for recent prior events, adaptively making that information more available to guide future decision-making. Here, we tested whether reward enhances memory for associative item-location information and also whether the effect of reward spreads to other categorically-related but unrewarded items. Participants earned either points (Experiment 1) or money (Experiment 2) through a time-estimation reward task, during which stimuli-location pairings around a 2D-ring were shown followed by either high-value (...) or low-value rewards. All stimuli were then tested for location memory or recognition (yes/no), immediately and after a 24-hour delay. Across both experiments (combined analysis), there was a robust improvement in location memory following high-value rewards, even though evidence supporting this effect was reliable in Experiment 2 but not in Experiment 1. The memory-enhancing effect of reward was observed on both the immediate and delayed location-memory tests. Reward-enhanced memory for both directly rewarded stimuli and categorically related stimuli that were not directly rewarded. No reliable effect of reward value on yes/no recognition-memory performance was observed in either experiment. We hypothesise that reward enhances the consolidation of recent experience and conceptually related memories to make these more available for future decisions. (shrink)

While it is known that reward induces attentional prioritization, it is not clear what effect reward-learning has when associated with stimuli that are not fully perceived. The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impact of brief stimuli on response behavior. Interestingly, the effect of masked primes is observed even when participants choose their responses freely. While classical theories assume this process to be automatic, recent studies have provided evidence for attentional modulations (...) of masked priming effects. Most such studies have manipulated bottom-up or top-down modes of attentional selection, but the role of “newer” forms of attentional control such as reward-learning and selection history remains unclear. In two experiments, with number and arrow primes, we examined whether reward-mediated attentional selection modulates masked priming when responses are chosen freely. In both experiments, we observed that primes associated with high-reward lead to enhanced free-choice priming compared to primes associated with no-reward. The effect was seen on both proportion of choices and response times, and was more evident in the faster responses. In the slower responses, the effect was diminished. Our study adds to the growing literature showing the susceptibility of masked priming to factors related to attention and executive control. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous (...) and task-irrelevant challenge previously held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications. (shrink)

Studies suggest that reward and emotion are interdependent. However, there are discrepancies regarding the interaction between these variables. Some researchers speculate that the inconsistent findings may be due to different targets being used. Although reward and emotion both affect attention, it is not clear whether their impacts are independent. This study examined the impact of reward anticipation on emotion processing for different targets. A cue-target paradigm was used, and behavior and eye-tracking data were recorded in an emotion (...) or sex recognition task under the conditions of reward and non-reward anticipation. The results showed that when the target was related to the emotional attribute of the stimulus, the reward promoted the processing target information, thereby generating reward-oriented attention. When the target was unrelated to the emotional attributes of the stimulus, the reward did not promote the processing target information, and at the same time, individuals had negative emotional biases toward the emotional faces. The results revealed that, in addition to affecting the attention to emotional faces independently, the target regulated the promotion of reward anticipation to emotional attention and attention bias towards negative stimuli. (shrink)

Dopamine is critically important in the neural manifestation of motivated behavior, and alterations in the human dopaminergic system have been implicated in the etiology of motivation-related psychiatric disorders, most prominently addiction. Patients with chronic addiction exhibit reduced dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) availability in the striatum, and the DRD2 TaqIA (rs1800497) and C957T (rs6277) genetic polymorphisms have previously been linked to individual differences in striatal dopamine metabolism and clinical risk for alcohol and nicotine dependence. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that the (...) variants of these polymorphisms would show increased reward-related memory formation, which has previously been shown to jointly engage the mesolimbic dopaminergic system and the hippocampus, as a potential intermediate phenotype for addiction memory. To this end, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 62 young, healthy individuals genotyped for DRD2 TaqIA and C957T variants. Participants performed an incentive delay task, followed by a recognition memory task 24 h later. We observed effects of both genotypes on the overall recognition performance with carriers of low-expressing variants, namely TaqIA A1 carriers and C957T C homozygotes, showing better performance than the other genotype groups. In addition to the better memory performance, C957T C homozygotes also exhibited a response bias for cues predicting monetary reward. At the neural level, the C957T polymorphism was associated with a genotype-related modulation of right hippocampal and striatal fMRI responses predictive of subsequent recognition confidence for reward-predicting items. Our results indicate that genetic variations associated with DRD2 expression affect explicit memory, specifically for rewarded stimuli. We suggest that the relatively better memory for rewarded stimuli in carriers of low-expressing DRD2 variants may reflect an intermediate phenotype of addiction memory. (shrink)

Adolescence has been linked to an enhanced tolerance of uncertainty and risky behavior and is possibly connected to an increased response toward rewards. However, previous research has produced inconsistent findings. To investigate whether these findings are due to different reward probabilities used in the experimental design, we extended a monetary incentive delay task by including three different reward probabilities. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, 25 healthy adolescents and 22 adults were studied during anticipation of rewards in the VS. (...) Differently colored cue stimuli indicated either a monetary or verbal trial and symbolized different reward probabilities, to which the participants were blinded. Results demonstrated faster reaction times for lower reward probabilities in both age groups. Adolescents were slower through all conditions and had less activation on a neural level. Imaging results showed a three-way interaction between age group x condition x reward probability with differences in percent signal change between adolescents and adults for the high reward probabilities while adolescents demonstrated differences for the lowest. Therefore, previous inconsistent findings could be due to different reward probabilities, which makes examining these crucial for a better understanding of adolescent and adult behavior. (shrink)

Irrelevant emotional stimuli often capture attention, disrupting ongoing cognitive processes. In two experiments, we examined whether availability of rewards can prevent...

One puzzling result in training-test paradigms is that effects of reward-associated stimuli on attention are often seen in test but not in training. We focus on one study, where reward-related performance benefits occur in the training and which was discussed contentiously. By using a similar design, we conceptually replicated the results. Moreover, we investigated the underlying mechanisms and processes resulting in these reward-related performance benefits. In two experiments, using search tasks and having participants perform the tasks (...) either with or without individually adjusted time pressure, we disentangled the mechanisms and processes contributing to the reward-related benefits. We found evidence that not only search efficiency is increased with increasing reward, but also that non-search factors contribute to the results. By also investigating response time distributions, we were able to show that reward-related performance effects increased as search time increased in demanding tasks but not in less demanding tasks. Theoretical implications of the results regarding how reward influences attentional processing are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the way humans interact with domestic companion animals, with a focus on ‘positive reward-based training’ methods, particularly for dogs. From a biosemiotic perspective, I discuss the role of animal training in today’s society and examine what binary reward- based reinforcement schedules communicate, semiotically. I also examine the extent to which reward-based training methods promote better welfare, when compared to the more traditional methods which rely on aversive stimuli and punishment, if and (...) when they are relied upon excessively. I conclude that when used as the primary means of communication, they have the potential to be detrimental to animal welfare, because the underlying social signal is control and resource dominance. As an alternative view to behaviourist-based learning theory and conditioning, I outline how enactivist theories of cognition support a semiotic approach to interspecific human-animal communication. I therefore propose a move toward a dynamic semiosis and mutual understanding based upon Peirce’s phenomenology, resulting in a more balanced merging of Umwelten. The aim is to create rich and more complex semiospheres around humans and domestic animals, which allow for individual agency and autonomy. (shrink)

Linking arbitrary shapes to personal labels or reward values results in immediate processing benefits for those stimuli that happen to be associated with the self or high rewards in perceptual matching tasks. Here we further explored how social and reward associations interact with multisensory stimuli by pairing labels and objects with tones. We also investigated whether self and reward biases persist for multisensory stimuli with the label removed after an association had been made. Both (...) high reward stimuli and those associated with the self, resulted in faster responses and improved discriminability, which persisted for multisensory stimuli even when the labels were removed. However, these self- and reward-biases partly depended on the specific alignment between the physical tones and the conceptual order. Performance for reward associations improved when the endpoints of low or high rewards were paired with low or high tones; meanwhile, for personal associations, there was a benefit when the self was paired with either low or high tones, but there was no effect when the stranger was associated with either endpoint. These results indicate that, unlike reward, social personal associations are not represented along a continuum with two marked endpoints but rather with a single reference point. (shrink)

The vital role of reward in guiding visual attention has been supported by previous literatures. Here, we examined the motivational impact of monetary reward feedback stimuli on visual attention selection using an event-related potential component called stimulus-preceding negativity and a standard contextual cueing paradigm. It has been proposed that SPN reflects affective and motivational processing. We focused on whether incidentally learned context knowledge could be affected by reward. Both behavior and brain data demonstrated that contexts followed (...) by reward feedback not only gave rise to faster implicit learning but also obtained a larger CC effect. (shrink)

Genetic moderation of experience of reward in response to environmental stimuli is relevant for the study of many psychiatric disorders. Experience of reward, however, is difficult to capture, as it involves small fluctuations in affect in response to small events in the flow of daily life. This study examined a momentary assessment reward phenotype in relation to the catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism. A total of 351 participants from a twin study participated in an Experience Sampling (...) Method procedure to collect daily life experiences concerning events, event appraisals, and affect. Reward experience was operationalized, as the effect of event appraisal on positive affect (PA). Associations between COMT Val 158Met genotype and event appraisal on the one hand and PA on the other were examined using multilevel random regression analysis. Ability to experience reward increased with the number of ‘Met’ alleles of the subject, and this differential effect of genotype was greater for events that were experienced as more pleasant. The effect size of genotypic moderation was quite large: subjects with the Val/Val genotype generated almost similar amounts of PA from a ‘very pleasant event’ as Met/Met subjects did from a ‘bit pleasant event’. Genetic variation with functional impact on cortical dopamine tone has a strong influence on reward experience in the flow of daily life. Genetic moderation of ecological measures of reward experience is hypothesized to be of major relevance to the development of various behavioral disorders, including depression and addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology (2008) 33, 3030–3036; doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1301520; published online 8 August 2007.. (shrink)

While art is omnipresent in human history, the neural mechanisms of how we perceive, value and differentiate art has only begun to be explored. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies suggested that art acts as secondary reward, involving brain activity in the ventral striatum and prefrontal cortices similar to primary rewards such as food. However, potential similarities or unique characteristics of art-related neuroscience remain elusive, also because of a lack of adequate experimental tools: the available collections of art stimuli (...) often lack standard image definitions and normative ratings. Therefore, we here provide a large set of well-characterized, novel art images for use as visual stimuli in psychological and neuroimaging research. The stimuli were created using a deep learning algorithm that applied different styles of popular paintings on ordinary animal, plant and object images which were drawn from established visual stimuli databases. The novel stimuli represent mundane items with artistic properties with proposed reduced dimensionality and complexity compared to paintings. In total, 2,332 novel stimuli are available open access as “art.pics” database at https://osf.io/BTWNQ/ with standard image characteristics that are comparable to other common visual stimuli material in terms of size, variable color distribution, complexity, intensity and valence, measured by image software analysis and by ratings derived from a human experimental validation study [n = 1,296, age 30.2 ± 8.8 y.o.]. The experimental validation study further showed that the art.pics elicit a broad and significantly different variation in subjective value ratings as well as in recognizability, arousal and valence across different art styles and categories. Researchers are encouraged to study the perception, processing and valuation of art images based on the art.pics database which also enables real reward remuneration of the rated stimuli and a direct comparison to other rewards from e.g., food or money.Key Messages: We provide an open access, validated and large set of novel stimuli of standardized art images including normative rating data to be used for experimental research. Reward remuneration in experimental settings can be easily implemented for the art.pics by e.g., handing out the stimuli to the participants, as done in the presented validation task. Experimental validation showed that the art.pics’ images elicit a broad and significantly different variation in subjective value ratings across different art styles and categories, while size, color and complexity characteristics remained comparable to other visual stimuli databases. (shrink)

Decision making in any brain is imperfect and costly in terms of time and energy. Operating under such constraints, an organism could be in a position to improve performance if an opportunity arose to exploit informative patterns in the environment being searched. Such an improvement of performance could entail both faster and more accurate (i.e., reward-maximizing) decisions. The present study investigated the extent to which human participants could learn to take advantage of immediate patterns in the spatial arrangement of (...) serially presented foods such that a region of space would consistently be associated with greater subjective value. Eye movements leading up to choices demonstrated rapidly induced biases in the selective allocation of visual fixation and attention that were accompanied by both faster and more accurate choices of desired goods as implicit learning occurred. However, for the control condition with its spatially balanced reward environment, these subjects exhibited preexisting lateralized biases for eye and hand movements (i.e., leftward and rightward, respectively) that could act in opposition not only to each other but also to the orienting biases elicited by the experimental manipulation, producing an asymmetry between the left and right hemifields with respect to performance. Potentially owing at least in part to learned cultural conventions (e.g., reading from left to right), the findings herein particularly revealed an intrinsic leftward bias underlying initial saccades in the midst of more immediate feedback-directed processes for which spatial biases can be learned flexibly to optimize oculomotor and manual control in value-based decision making. The present study thus replicates general findings of learned attentional biases in a novel context with inherently rewarding stimuli and goes on to further elucidate the interactions between endogenous and exogenous biases. (shrink)

Because little is known about the human trait of affiliation, we provide a novel neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding. Discussion is organized around processes of reward and memory formation that occur during approach and consummatory phases of affiliation. Appetitive and consummatory reward processes are mediated independently by the activity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA)–nucleus accumbens shell (NAS) pathway and the central corticolimbic projections of the u-opiate system of the medial basal arcuate nucleus, respectively, although these (...) two projection systems functionally interact across time. We next explicate the manner in which DA and glutamate interact in both the VTA and NAS to form incentive-encoded contextual memory ensembles that are predictive of reward derived from affiliative objects. Affiliative stimuli, in particular, are incorporated within contextual ensembles predictive of affiliative reward via: (a) the binding of affiliative stimuli in the rostral circuit of the medial extended amygdala and subsequent transmission to the NAS shell; (b) affiliative stimulus-induced opiate potentiation of DA processes in the VTA and NAS; and (c) permissive or facilitatory effects of gonadal steroids, oxytocin (in interaction with DA), and vasopressin on (i) sensory, perceptual, and attentional processing of affiliative stimuli and (ii) formation of social memories. Among these various processes, we propose that the capacity to experience affiliative reward via opiate functioning has a disproportionate weight in determining individual differences in affiliation. We delineate sources of these individual differences, and provide the first human data that support an association between opiate functioning and variation in trait affiliation. Key Words: affiliation corticolimbic-striatal networks; appetitive and consummatory reward; dopamine; oxytocin; personality; social bonds; social memory; u-opiates. (shrink)

The “reward” systems described by Rolls are systems for drive-reinforced associations of contact and distant stimuli and not for emotional behaviours. The neural systems delineated may be associated with distinct categories of “affect,” namely “hedonic feelings,” “moods,” and “emotions.” Awareness of these affects requires external perceptual as well as internal feedback. Levels of feedback in evolution and development suggest sensory qualia may not require language.

Our love for art is a compound byproduct of four different evolutionary events which attached reward to conscious experience itself, to the direction of attention to significant items in consciousness, to representations of scenarios in the brain's default mode network, and to the experience of novel stimuli. Aesthetic experiences contain varying amounts of these rewards, which helps to explain their diversity.

Evolutionary fitness threats and rewards are associated with subjectively unpleasant and pleasant sensations, respectively. Initially, these correlations appear explainable via adaptation by natural selection. But here I analyse the major metaphysical perspectives on consciousness – physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism – and conclude that none help to understand the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation. I also argue that a recently proposed explanation, the phenomenal powers view, has major problems that mean it cannot explain the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation either. So the mystery (...) – call it the evolutionary paradox of consciousness – remains. Some have used this mystery to argue for non-naturalistic (e.g. theistic) explanations. But I propose a naturalistic, non-adaptive explanation of the adaptive-seeming correlations: namely, ‘sensational associative learning’ during development. In this perspective, pairing of particular sensations with unconditioned stimuli – fitness rewards or threats – cause the sensations themselves to come to be interpreted as good or bad, respectively. Sensations, like colours, that are not reliably paired with either fitness rewards or threats remain largely unvalenced. Sensational associative learning also provides explanations for adaptive-seeming structural aspects of sensations, such as the observation that sounds of different pitch are experienced as ordinal in correspondence to their wavelengths while the same is not true of colours of different hue. The sensational associative learning perspective appears compatible with physicalism, panpsychism, and dualism (though not epiphenomenalism). (shrink)

An approach to emotion is described in which emotions are defined as states elicited by instrumental reinforcers, that is, by stimuli that are the goals for action. This leads to a theory of the evolutionary adaptive value of emotions, which is that different genes specify different goals in their own self-interest, and any actions can then be learned and performed by instrumental learning to obtain the goals. The brain mechanisms for emotion in brain regions such as the orbitofrontal and (...) anterior cingulate cortex provide a foundation for understanding the neural basis of emotion. Classically conditioned effects may modulate the actions initiated by this system. In addition to this instrumental learning system, some stimuli may elicit responses, for example approach, withdrawal, or fixed action patterns, but intervening states are not required for this type of adaptive response. In addition, a rational thought system involved in multistep planning can allow gene-specified goals to be deferred or avoided in order to achieve longer-term types of goals that may be more advantageous to the individual than to the genes. (shrink)

We present a theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it. Any theory of art has to ideally have three components. The logic of art: whether there are universal rules or principles; The evolutionary rationale: why did these rules evolve and why do they have the form that they do; What is the brain circuitry involved? Our paper begins with a quest for artistic universals and proposes a list of ‘Eight laws of artistic experience’ -- a (...) set of heuristics that artists either consciously or unconsciously deploy to optimally titillate the visual areas of the brain. One of these principles is a psychological phenomenon called the peak shift effect: If a rat is rewarded for discriminating a rectangle from a square, it will respond even more vigorously to a rectangle that is longer and skinnier that the prototype. We suggest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Example: An evocative sketch of a female nude may be one which selectively accentuates those feminine form-attributes that allow one to discriminate it from a male figure; a Boucher, a Van Gogh, or a Monet may be a caricature in ‘colour space’ rather than form space. Even abstract art may employ ‘supernormal’ stimuli to excite form areas in the brain more strongly than natural stimuli. Second, we suggest that grouping is a very basic principle. The different extrastriate visual areas may have evolved specifically to extract correlations in different domains , and discovering and linking multiple features into unitary clusters -- objects -- is facilitated and reinforced by direct connections from these areas to limbic structures. In general, when object-like entities are partially discerned at any stage in the visual hierarchy, messages are sent back to earlier stages to alert them to certain locations or features in order to look for additional evidence for the object . Finally, given constraints on allocation of attentional resources, art is most appealing if it produces heightened activity in a single dimension rather than redundant activation of multiple modules. This idea may help explain the effectiveness of outline drawings and sketches, the savant syndrome in autists, and the sudden emergence of artistic talent in fronto-temporal dementia. In addition to these three basic principles we propose five others, constituting a total of ‘eight laws of aesthetic experience’. (shrink)

Prominent models of attentional control assert a dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up control, with the former determined by current selection goals and the latter determined by physical salience. This theoretical dichotomy, however, fails to explain a growing number of cases in which neither current goals nor physical salience can account for strong selection biases. For example, equally salient stimuli associated with reward can capture attention, even when this contradicts current selection goals. Thus, although 'top-down' sources of bias are (...) sometimes defined as those that are not due to physical salience, this conception conflates distinct - and sometimes contradictory - sources of selection bias. We describe an alternative framework, in which past selection history is integrated with current goals and physical salience to shape an integrated priority map. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that predictive processing (PP) theory cannot account for the phenomenon of affect-biased attention prioritized attention to stimuli that are affectively salient because of their associations with reward or punishment. Specifically, the PP hypothesis that selective attention can be analyzed in terms of the optimization of precision expectations cannot accommodate affect-biased attention; affectively salient stimuli can capture our attention even when precision expectations are low. We review the prospects of three recent attempts to (...) accommodate affect with tools internal to PP theory: Miller and Clark’s (2018) embodied inference; Seth’s (2013) interoceptive inference; and Joffily and Coricelli’s (2013) rate of change of free energy. In each case we argue that the account does not resolve the challenge from affect-biased attention. For this reason, we conclude that prediction error minimization is not sufficient to explain all mental phenomena, contrary to the claim that the PP framework provides a unified theory of all mental phenomena or the brain ‘s cognitive functioning. Nevertheless, we suggest that empirical investigation of the interaction between affective salience and precision expectations should prove helpful in understanding the limits of PP theory, and may provide new directions for the application of a Bayesian perspective to perception. (shrink)

Based on the assumption that consumers will reward firms for their support of social programs, many organizations have adopted corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Drawing on social identity theory, a model of influence of CSR on loyalty is developed and tested using a sample of real consumers. Results demonstrate that CSR initiatives are linked to stronger loyalty both because the consumer develops a more positive company evaluation, and because one identifies more strongly with the company. Moreover, identity salience is (...) shown to play a crucial role in the influence of CSR initiatives on consumer loyalty when this influence occurs through consumer-company identification. A strong identifier is not necessarily in a constant state of salience, but activating identity salience of a particular consumer social identity (a company) will affect consumer reactions to product stimuli, increasing consumer loyalty. (shrink)

Approach–avoidance theories describe the major systems that motivate behaviours in reaction to classes of appetitive (rewarding) and aversive (punishing) stimuli. The literature points to two major “avoidance” systems, one related to pure avoidance and escape of aversive stimuli, and a second, to behavioural inhibition induced by the detection of goal conflict (in addition, there is evidence for nonaffective behavioural constraint). A third major system, responsible for approach behaviour, is reactive to appetitive stimuli, and has several subcomponents. A (...) number of combined effects of these systems are outlined. Finally, the hierarchical nature of behavioural control is delineated, including the role played by conscious awareness in behavioural inhibition. (shrink)

We discuss the evolutionary transition from animals with limited experiencing to animals with unlimited experiencing and basic consciousness. This transition was, we suggest, intimately linked with the evolution of associative learning and with flexible reward systems based on, and modifiable by, learning. During associative learning, new pathways relating stimuli and effects are formed within a highly integrated and continuously active nervous system. We argue that the memory traces left by such new stimulus-effect relations form dynamic, flexible, and varied (...) global sensory states, which we call categorizing sensory states . These CSSs acquired a function: they came to act as internal “evaluators” and led to positive and negative reinforcement of new behavior. They are therefore the simplest, distinct, first-person motivational states that an animal can have. They constitute what we call basic consciousness, and are the hallmark of animals that can experience. Since associative learning has been found in many invertebrate taxa that first appeared during the Cambrian era, we propose that the processes underlying basic consciousness are phylogenetically ancient, and that their emergence may have fueled the Cambrian explosion. (shrink)

Although consumers increasingly claim to demand ethical products and state that they are willing to reward firms that are ethical, studies have highlighted that there is a significant gap between consumers’ explicit attitudes toward ethical products and their actual purchase behavior. This has major implications for firm policies revolving around business ethics. This research contributes to the understanding of the attitude–behavior gap in ethical consumption that literature has identified but not explored much. We utilize the model of dual attitudes (...) as a basis for the arguments presented in the paper and test them. We suggest that the gap in ethical consumerism exists because individuals have implicit as well as explicit attitudes, which are impacted differentially by stimuli and elicit dissimilar behavioral responses and thus have different implications for business ethics policies. Two longitudinal studies are conducted to better understand the impact of an individual’s dual attitudes on preferences and choice. Our findings support the presence of dual attitudes in consumers. Explicit attitudes are found to be easily influenced by the nature of the stimuli. On the other hand, implicit attitudes are relatively unaffected by the nature of the stimuli present and remain relatively constant. Based on the findings, implicit attitudes guide behavior and determine an individual’s preferences. Even though explicit attitudes react to the stimuli presented, our findings suggest they have no impact on the choice of consumers. These findings improve the understanding of ethical consumption, provide a reason as to why the attitude–behavior gap exists, provide a foundation for future researchers and help firms better understand the impact of perceived business on creating a behavioral shift in ethical consumption. (shrink)

Pain is most often an unpleasant experience that alerts us to actual or possible tissue damage. However, insisting that pain is always bad news may hinder understanding of pain’s many facets. Despite its unpleasantness – or perhaps because of it – pain is known to enhance the perceived value of certain activities, such as punishment or endurance sports. Here, we review evidence for a series of mechanisms involved in putative benefits of pain. A byproduct of pain’s attention-grabbing quality can be (...) enhanced perception of concurrent pleasurable stimuli. This is thought to explain why pain may augment the pleasure of spicy foods. By providing an aversive contrast, pain can also improve the experience of events that follow pain’s offset and lead to pleasant relief. Other potential benefits of pain derive from its ability to inhibit other unpleasant experiences and to elicit empathy and social support. The experience of pain can benefit our defence systems, since pain can enhance motivation to accumulate resources such as social support and calorie-rich foods. It can also reduce the guilt we feel after self-indulgence or moral transgressions. In sum, we highlight a series of potentially positive effects linked to pain. This framework can aid the understanding of why people sometimes seek out, enjoy, and gain rewards from pain as well as pleasure. (shrink)

Emotionally arousing events reach awareness more easily and evoke greater visual cortex activation than more mundane events. Recent studies have shown that they are also perceived more vividly and that emotionally enhanced perceptual vividness predicts memory vividness. We propose that affect-biased attention (ABA) – selective attention to emotionally salient events – is an endogenous attentional system tuned by an individual's history of reward and punishment. We present the Biased Attention via Norepinephrine (BANE) model, which unifies genetic, neuromodulatory, neural and (...) behavioural evidence to account for ABA. We review evidence supporting BANE's proposal that a key mechanism of ABA is locus coeruleus–norepinephrine (LC–NE) activity, which interacts with activity in hubs of affective salience networks to modulate visual cortex activation and heighten the subjective vividness of emotionally salient stimuli. We further review literature on biased competition and look at initial evidence for its potential as a neural mechanism behind ABA. We also review evidence supporting the role of the LC–NE system as a driving force of ABA. Finally, we review individual differences in ABA and memory including differences in sensitivity to stimulus category and valence. We focus on differences arising from a variant of the ADRA2b gene, which codes for the alpha2b adrenoreceptor as a way of investigating influences of NE availability on ABA in humans. (shrink)

We briefly describe ways in which neuroeconomics has made contributions to its contributing disciplines, especially neuroscience, and a specific way in which it could make future contributions to both. The contributions of a scientific research programme can be categorized in terms of (1) description and classification of phenomena, (2) the discovery of causal relationships among those phenomena, and (3) the development of tools to facilitate (1) and (2). We consider ways in which neuroeconomics has advanced neuroscience and economics along each (...) line. Then, focusing on electrophysiological methods, we consider a puzzle within neuroeconomics whose solution we believe could facilitate contributions to both neuroscience and economics, in line with category (2). This puzzle concerns how the brain assigns reward values to otherwise incomparable stimuli. According to the common currency hypothesis, dopamine release is a component of a neural mechanism that solves comparability problems. We review two versions of the common currency hypothesis, one proposed by Read Montague and colleagues, the other by William Newsome and colleagues, and fit these hypotheses into considerations of rational choice. (shrink)

Background: While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition, and others have looked specifically at religious belief. However, no research has compared these two states of mind directly. (...) Methodology/Principal Findings: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure signal changes in the brains of thirty subjects - fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers - as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions. For both groups, and in both categories of stimuli, belief was associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. This region showed greater signal whether subjects believed statements about God, the Virgin Birth, etc. or statements about ordinary facts. A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks. Conclusions/Significance: While religious and nonreligious thinking differentially engage broad regions of the frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobes, the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent. Our study compares religious thinking with ordinary cognition and, as such, constitutes a step toward developing a neuropsychology of religion. However, these findings may also further our understanding of how the brain accepts statements of all kinds to be valid descriptions of the world. © 2009 Harris et al. (shrink)

The concept of intrasemiotics designates the semiosis of the interpenetration between the biological and psychological autopoietic systems as Luhmann defines them in his theory. Combining a Peircian concept of semiosis with Luhmann’s theory in the framework of biosemiotics makes it possible for us to view the interplay of mind and body as a sign play. The recently suggested term ‘sign play’ pertains to ecosemiotics processes between animals of the same species stretching Wittgenstein’s language concept into the animal world of signs. (...) With intrasemiotics there is an inner interplay. Lorenz in ethology has used the concept of motivation, and Uexküll the concept of tone, mostly describing the outgoing effect on perception and the reactions on perception. One could view intrasemiotics as the interplay between Lorenz’ biologically defined motivations and Freud’s Id, understood as the psychological aspect of many of the natural drives. In the last years of development of his theory Lorenz studied how emotional feedback can introduce just a little learning through pleasurable feelings also into the instinctivesystems because, as he reasoned, there must be some kind of reward going through instinctive movements, thus making the appetitive searching behaviourfor sign stimuli possible. But he never found an acceptable way of modelling motivation in biological science. A cybersemiotic model may combine these approaches, defining various concepts of thoughtsemiotics, phenosemiotic and intrasemiotics, combining them with the already known concepts of exosemiotics, ecosemiotics, endosemiotics to an approach which studies the self-organising semiotic processes in living systems. (shrink)

Sequential action makes up the bulk of human daily activity, and yet much remains unknown about how people learn such actions. In one motor learning paradigm, the serial reaction time (SRT) task, people are taught a consistent sequence of button presses by cueing them with the next target response. However, the SRT task only records keypress response times to a cued target, and thus it cannot reveal the full time‐course of motion, including predictive movements. This paper describes a mouse movement (...) trajectory SRT task in which the cursor must be moved to a cued location. We replicated keypress SRT results, but also found that predictive movement—before the next cue appears—increased during the experiment. Moreover, trajectory analyses revealed that people developed a centering strategy under uncertainty. In a second experiment, we made prediction explicit, no longer cueing targets. Thus, participants had to explore the response alternatives and learn via reinforcement, receiving rewards and penalties for correct and incorrect actions, respectively. Participants were not told whether the sequence of stimuli was deterministic, nor if it would repeat, nor how long it was. Given the difficulty of the task, it is unsurprising that some learners performed poorly. However, many learners performed remarkably well, and some acquired the full 10‐item sequence within 10 repetitions. Comparing the high‐ and low‐performers’ detailed results in this reinforcement learning (RL) task with the first experiment's cued trajectory SRT task, we found similarities between the two tasks, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 are due to predictive, rather than reactive processes. Finally, we found that two standard model‐free reinforcement learning models fit the high‐performing participants, while the four low‐performing participants provide better fit with a simple negative recency bias model. (shrink)

Evaluative processes have their roots in early evolutionary history, as survival is dependent on an organism’s ability to identify and respond appropriately to positive, rewarding or otherwise salubrious stimuli as well as to negative, noxious, or injurious stimuli. Consequently, evaluative processes are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and are represented at multiple levels of the nervous system, including the lowest levels of the neuraxis. While evolution has sculpted higher level evaluative systems into complex and sophisticated information-processing networks, they (...) do not come to replace, but rather to interact with more primitive lower level representations. Indeed, there are basic features of the underlying neuroarchitectural plan for evaluative processes that are common across levels of organization—including that of evaluative bivalence. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the concept of attentional scaffolds and show the resemblance between social media platforms and slot machines, both functioning as hostile attentional scaffolds. The first section establishes the groundwork for the concept of attentional scaffolds and draws parallels to the mechanics of slot machines, to argue that social media platforms aim to capture users’ attention to maximize engagement through a system of intermittent rewards. The second section shifts focus to the interplay between emotions and attention, revealing (...) how online attentional capture through emotionally triggering stimuli leads to distraction. The final section elucidates the collective implications of scaffolding attention through social media platforms. The examination of phenomena such as emotional contagion and the emergence of group emotions underscores the transition from individual experiences to shared collective outcomes. Employing online moral outrage as a case study, we illustrate how negative emotions serve as scaffolds for individuals’ attention, propagate within social groups, and give rise to collective attitudes. (shrink)

We argue that the phases identified in the novelty-seeking model can be clarified by considering an updated version of the optimal-level of arousal model, which incorporates the “arousal” and “mood changing” potentials of stimuli and contexts. Such a model provides valuable insights into what determines one's state of mind, inter-individual differences, and the rewarding effects of curiosity and creativity.

ABSTRACTAffective states influence how individuals process information and behave. Some theories predict emotional congruency effects. Emotional congruency should theoretically obstruct the learning of reward associations and their ability to guide behaviour under negative mood. Two studies tested the effects of the induction of a negative affective state on appetitive Pavlovian learning, in which neutral stimuli were associated with chocolate or alcohol rewards. In both experiments, participants showed enhanced approach tendencies towards predictors of reward after a negative relative (...) to a positive performance feedback manipulation. This increase was related to a reduction in positive affect in Experiment 1 only. No effects of the manipulation on conditioned reward expectancies, craving, or consumption were observed. Overall, our findings support the idea of counter-regu... (shrink)

Current perspectives on attractiveness-related prosocial biases emphasize the contribution of evolutionarily shaped mating drives. Here, we extend these concepts by highlighting the pivotal role of the hypothalamic peptide oxytocin in augmenting the salience and rewarding value of social stimuli, including the partner's face, thereby fostering social bonding in general and the stability of monogamous pair bonds and offspring care in particular.

A prefrontal control system that is less mature than the limbic reward system in adolescence is thought to impede self-regulatory abilities, which could contribute to poor dietary choices and obesity. We, therefore, aimed to examine whether structural morphology of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are associated with dietary decisions and obesity in children and adolescents. Seventy-one individuals between the ages of 8–22 years participated in this study; each participant completed a computer-based food choice task and a T1- and (...) T2-weighted structural brain scans. Two indices of obesity were assessed, including age- and sex-specific body mass index and waist-to-height ratio. The behavioral task included rating 60 food stimuli for tastiness, healthiness, and liking. Based on each participant’s self-ratings, 100 binary food choices were then made utilizing a computer mouse. Dietary “self-control” was calculated as the proportion of trials where the individual chose the healthier food item over the total number of trials. Cortical thickness and amygdala subnuclei volumes were quantified using FreeSurfer 6.0 and CIT168 atlas, respectively. We found that WHtR was negatively associated with the thickness of bilateral superior frontal, left superior temporal, right insula, and right inferior temporal regions. We also found WHtR to be positively associated with the volume of the central nucleus region of the amygdala, after adjusting for the hemisphere, age, sex, and intracranial volumes. A similar data pattern was observed when BMIz was used. Moreover, we found that across all participants, thinner right superior frontal cortex and larger left CEN volumes predicted lower dietary self-control. These results suggest that differential development of the PFC and amygdala relate to obesity and dietary self-control. Further longitudinal studies are merited to determine causal relationships among altered PFC to amygdala neural circuitry, dietary self-control, and obesity. (shrink)

Affect mirroring allows infants to distinguish emotional and intentional states of significant others, which – in the pursuit of their own drive satisfaction, including satisfaction of the affiliative drive – become important contextual stimuli predictive of reward. Learning to perceive and manipulate others' attitudes toward oneself in pursuit of affiliative reward may be an important step in social development that is impaired in autism.

Emotions are complex reactions that allow individuals to cope with significant positive and negative events. Research on emotion was pioneered by Darwin’s (1871) work on emotional expressions in humans and animals. But Darwin was concerned mainly with facial and bodily expressions of significance for humans, citing mainly examples from mammals (e.g., apes, dogs, and cats). In birds, emotional expressions are less evident for a human observer, so a different approach is needed. Understanding avian emotions will provide key evolutionary information on (...) the evolution of related behaviors and brain circuitry. Birds and mammals are thought to have evolved from different groups of Mesozoic reptiles, theropod dinosaurs and therapsids, respectively, and therefore their common ancestor is likely to be a basal reptile living about 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous or Permian. Yet, birds and mammals exhibit extensive convergence in terms of relative brain size, high levels of activity, sleep/wakefulness cycles, endothermy, and social behavior, among others. This article focuses on two basic emotions with negative valence: fear and frustration. Fear is related to the anticipation of dangerous or threatening stimuli (e.g., predators or aggressive conspecifics). Frustration is related to unexpected reward omissions or devaluations (e.g., loss of food or sexual resources). These results have implications for an understanding of the conditions that promote fear and frustration, and for the evolution of supporting brain circuitry. (shrink)