Senqing Qi

Neural correlates of reward-driven attentional capture in visual search.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate whether a physically non-salient and task-irrelevant stimulus feature previously associated with reward can capture attention. In the training phase, participants implicitly associated a certain color with reward. In the subsequent test phase, participants searched for a uniquely shaped singleton among non-target shapes, with color completely irrelevant to the current task demand. Response time was delayed on trials wherein the target was simultaneously presented with an associated distracter, compared with trials without one. In ERPs, a lateralized reward-associated distracter elicited an N2pc component when a concurrent target was presented on the vertical meridian. The control experiment discounted the possibility that this N2pc was caused by familiarity of the reward-associated distracter. Presenting both the target and reward-associated distracter on the opposite side elicited N2pc, with the reward-associated distracter-elicited N2pc preceding the target-elicited N2pc, albeit only in trials with slow responses. These results show that the participants shifted their attention to the target only after noticing the task-irrelevant reward-associated distracter in slow trials. Therefore, task-irrelevant reward-driven salience can capture attention. Distracter positivity was observed in fast distracter-present trials presenting both a lateral distracter and a midline target. Thus, the reward-associated distracter should be actively suppressed to efficiently select the task-relevant target. Lastly, the distracter-elicited N2pc was negatively correlated with individual differences in reward drive score. This correlation may provide insight into reward sensitivity problems.

Neural correlates of near-misses effect in gambling

The present study investigated the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the gambling near-miss effect by measuring event-related-potentials. Using a simple gambling task, we measured behavioral response and electrophysiological activity of gambling outcomes. Self-rating results showed that when compared to full-miss outcome, near-miss outcome were rated as less pleasant, but yielded higher motivation to play. Whereas the feedback-related negativity (FRN) amplitude did not reflect the motivation rating differences between near-miss and full-miss, the P300 amplitude mirrored the motivation rating differences between near-miss and full-miss, with larger amplitudes for near-miss outcomes. Dipole source analysis of the difference wave (near-miss minus full-miss) indicated that two generators of the P300, localized in the putamen and orbitofrontal cortex, might be involved in motivational evaluation and regret, respectively. Our findings indicated that the near-miss effect stems from sources: higher levels of motivation and the presence of regret, caused by counterfactual thinking.

Reduced representations capacity in visual working memory in trait anxiety

Neural processes that support individual differences in trait anxiety and the amount of representations in visual-spatial working memory (WM) are currently unclear. We measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA) in a lateralized change detection task to explore this question. Different levels of memory load were varied within each block. Despite their unimpaired behavioral performance, individuals with high traitanxious(HTA) displayed several changes in the neuronal markers of the memory processes. The CDA amplitudes reached asymptote at loads of three and four items for HTA and low traitanxious(LTA) individuals, respectively. This result indicates that HTA individuals reach the upper limit of representation capacity with a smaller memory load than LTA individuals. Furthermore, the smaller CDA amplitudes in HTA individuals under high memory loads could be attributed to less contralateral cortical activity, which further indicates that HTA individuals are associated with reduced representations of taskrelevantitems in WM.

An ERP study on the time course of facial trustworthiness appraisal.

The importance of facial trustworthiness for human interaction and communication is difficult to exaggerate. Reflections on daily experience indicate that the presence of a human face elicits rapid appraisals of its trustworthiness. Relatively little is known, however, about the exact brain processes related to this response. In the present study, event-related brain potentials were recorded during trustworthiness appraisals of various emotionally neutral faces. On the one hand, trustworthy faces elicited a more positive C1 than untrustworthy faces; a finding that might be related to initial stages of perceptual processing that categorizes faces on the basis of structural properties. On the other hand, untrustworthy faces elicited a more positive late positive component (LPC) than trustworthy faces, indicating that greater amounts of motivated attention are allocated to faces appearing to be untrustworthy. The LPC effect in this study was consistent with the prediction of the emotion overgeneralization hypothesis of trustworthy face evaluation.

Enhanced conflict-driven cognitive control by emotional arousal, not by valence

ABSTRACT Emotion is widely agreed to have two dimensions, valence and arousal. Few studies have explored the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation by considering both of these, which could have dissociate influence. The present study aimed to fill the gap as to whether emotional valence and arousal would exert dissociable influence on conflict adaptation. In the experiments, we included positive, neutral, and negative conditions, with comparable arousal between positive and negative conditions. Both positive and negative conditions have higher arousal than neutral ones. In Experiment 1, by using a two-colour-word Flanker task, we found that conflict adaptation was enhanced in both positive and negative contexts compared to a neutral context. Furthermore, this effect still existed when controlling stimulus–response repetitions in Experiment 2, which used a four-colour-word Flanker task. The findings suggest emotional arousal enhances conflict adaptation, regardless of emotional valence. Thus, future studies should consider emotional arousal when studying the effect of emotion on conflict adaptation. Moreover, the unique role of the emotional context in conflict-driven cognitive control is emphasised.

Influence of supraliminal reward information on unconsciously triggered response inhibition.

Although executive functions (e.g., response inhibition) are often thought to interact consciously with reward, recent studies have demonstrated that they can also be triggered by unconscious stimuli. Further research has suggested a close relationship between consciously and unconsciously triggered response inhibition. To date, however, the effect of reward on unconsciously triggered response inhibition has not been explored. To address this issue, participants in this study performed runs of a modified Go/No-Go task during which they were exposed to both high and low value monetary rewards presented both supraliminally and subliminally. Participants were informed that they would earn the reward displayed if they responded correctly to each trial of the run. According to the results, when rewards were presented supraliminally, a greater unconsciously triggered response inhibition was observed for high-value rewards than for low-value rewards. In contrast, when rewards were presented subliminally, no enhanced unconsciously triggered response inhibition was observed. Results revealed that supraliminal and subliminal rewards have distinct effects on unconsciously triggered response inhibition. These findings have important implications for extending our understanding of the relationship between reward and response inhibition.