scholarly journals Motivated Cognition: Effects of Reward, Emotion, and Other Motivational Factors Across a Variety of Cognitive Domains

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Madan

A growing body of literature has demonstrated that motivation influences cognitive processing. The breadth of these effects is extensive and span influences of reward, emotion, and other motivational processes across all cognitive domains. As examples, this scope includes studies of emotional memory, value-based attentional capture, emotion effects on semantic processing, reward-related biases in decision making, and the role of approach/avoidance motivation on cognitive scope. Additionally, other less common forms of motivation–cognition interactions, such as self-referential and motoric processing can also be considered instances of motivated cognition. Here I outline some of the evidence indicating the generality and pervasiveness of these motivation influences on cognition, and introduce the associated ‘research nexus’ at Collabra: Psychology.

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-7
Author(s):  
Anjan Chatterjee

In the early 2000s, no framework within which to investigate the biology of aesthetics had been articulated. The author believes that a componential framework, as was common in cognitive psychology, applied to neuroaesthetics made sense. Such frameworks were commonly applied to complex cognitive domains, such as in language, emotion processing, or visual processing research. As such, the author proposes a “box and arrow” model which incorporated levels of visual processing, emotions, attention, and decision-making. The advantage of such a framework is that specific experiments could be placed in the context of testing hypotheses of parts of a larger system deployed for aesthetic processing. The framework has held up well over the years, although the author believes he did not sufficiently emphasize the role of the motor system and the rich contribution of semantics in aesthetic experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil M. Dundon ◽  
Allison D. Shapiro ◽  
Viktoriya Babenko ◽  
Gold N. Okafor ◽  
Scott T. Grafton

Anxiety is characterized by low confidence in daily decisions, coupled with high levels of phenomenological stress. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays an integral role in maladaptive anxious behaviors via decreased sensitivity to threatening vs. non-threatening stimuli (fear generalization). vmPFC is also a key node in approach-avoidance decision making requiring two-dimensional integration of rewards and costs. More recently, vmPFC has been implicated as a key cortical input to the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. However, little is known about the role of this brain region in mediating rapid stress responses elicited by changes in confidence during decision making. We used an approach-avoidance task to examine the relationship between sympathetically mediated cardiac stress responses, vmPFC activity and choice behavior over long and short time-scales. To do this, we collected concurrent fMRI, EKG and impedance cardiography recordings of sympathetic drive while participants made approach-avoidance decisions about monetary rewards paired with painful electric shock stimuli. We observe first that increased sympathetic drive (shorter pre-ejection period) in states lasting minutes are associated with choices involving reduced decision ambivalence. Thus, on this slow time scale, sympathetic drive serves as a proxy for “mobilization” whereby participants are more likely to show consistent value-action mapping. In parallel, imaging analyses reveal that on shorter time scales (estimated with a trial-to-trial GLM), increased vmPFC activity, particularly during low-ambivalence decisions, is associated with decreased sympathetic state. Our findings support a role of sympathetic drive in resolving decision ambivalence across long time horizons and suggest a potential role of vmPFC in modulating this response on a moment-to-moment basis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthijs Baas ◽  
Bernard A. Nijstad ◽  
Jessie Koen ◽  
Nathalie C. Boot ◽  
Carsten K. W. De Dreu

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 254-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiuqing Cheng

A growing body of research has indicated a relationship between numeracy and decision making and that lower numerate people display more disadvantageous decisions. In the domain of intertemporal choice, researchers have long been using impulsivity to address choice preference. To further illuminate the psychological mechanisms of making intertemporal choices, the present study examined the role of impulsivity and numeracy in intertemporal choice, in the presence of each other. The study adopted both subjective and numeracy scales. These scales correlated with each other and with intertemporal choice preference. Moreover, it was found that after controlling for impulsivity, the object numeracy was significantly associated with choice preference, with higher numerate participants showing a stronger preference toward the later larger gains over the sooner smaller gains. Thus, the study indicated that intertemporal choice preference could be attributed to both impulsivity and numeracy.


2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-531 ◽  

Approach-avoidance conflict is an important psychological concept that has been used extensively to better understand cognition and emotion. This review focuses on neural systems involved in approach, avoidance, and conflict decision making, and how these systems overlap with implicated neural substrates of anxiety disorders. In particular, the role of amygdala, insula, ventral striatal, and prefrontal regions are discussed with respect to approach and avoidance behaviors. Three specific hypotheses underlying the dysfunction in anxiety disorders are proposed, including: (i) over-representation of avoidance valuation related to limbic overactivation; (ii) under- or over-representation of approach valuation related to attenuated or exaggerated striatal activation respectively; and (iii) insufficient integration and arbitration of approach and avoidance valuations related to attenuated orbitofrontal cortex activation. These dysfunctions can be examined experimentally using versions of existing decision-making paradigms, but may also require new translational and innovative approaches to probe approach-avoidance conflict and related neural systems in anxiety disorders.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 2073-2091
Author(s):  
Ci-Rong Li ◽  
Yanyu Yang ◽  
Chen-Ju Lin ◽  
Ying Xu

PurposeThis research adopts a dynamic self-regulation framework to test whether there is a curvilinear relationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creative performance at the within-person level. Furthermore, to establish a boundary condition of the predicted relationship, the authors build a cross-level model and examine how approach motivation and avoidance motivation moderate the complex relationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creative performance.Design/methodology/approachTo obtain results from a within-person analysis, the authors collect multi-source data from 125 technicians who provided monthly reports over an 8-month period.FindingsThe authors find evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creative performance at the within-person level and differential moderating effects of approach/avoidance motivations.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to challenge the assumption that creative self-efficacy always has a positive linear relationship with creativity. It provides a more complete view of the complex pattern between creative self-efficacy and creativity at the within-person level.


Author(s):  
Thais Spiegel

Among the aspects that conform the human cognition and therefore, the behavior observed in the choices, there is the individual experience. Researches point the experience performing either positive as negative roles in the process of decision-making. Motivated by the question, What is the role of the experience in the decision-making? this text sought to check in which way the state of art and the technique of Cognitive Sciences could contribute with the better understanding of the cognitive processing in the context of decision-making. It was adopted as a start the roles' structured exposition of the cognition elements during the decision process, as Spiegel's (2014) proposal. It was investigated through a systematic revision of the literature, the impacts of the decision-maker's experience in the manifestation of attention, categorization, memory and emotion. As a result, 17 inferences that present which is the role of the experience in the decision-making, and deeply, which are the implications of the experience in the cognitive process of the decision-maker, are presented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nga Yan Tse ◽  
Yu Chen ◽  
Muireann Irish ◽  
Nicholas J Cordato ◽  
Ramon Landin-Romero ◽  
...  

Abstract Mounting evidence suggests an association between cerebellar atrophy and cognitive impairment in the main frontotemporal dementia syndromes. In contrast, whether cerebellar atrophy is present in the motor syndromes associated with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (corticobasal syndrome and progressive supranuclear palsy) and the extent of its contribution to their cognitive profile remain poorly understood. The current study aimed to comprehensively chart profiles of cognitive impairment in relation to cerebellar atrophy in 49 dementia patients (corticobasal syndrome = 33; progressive supranuclear palsy = 16) compared to 33 age-, sex- and education-matched healthy controls. Relative to controls, corticobasal syndrome and progressive supranuclear palsy patients demonstrated characteristic cognitive impairment, spanning the majority of cognitive domains including attention and processing speed, language, working memory, and executive function with relative preservation of verbal and nonverbal memory. Voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed largely overlapping patterns of cerebellar atrophy in corticobasal syndrome and progressive supranuclear palsy relative to controls, primarily involving bilateral Crus II extending into adjacent lobules VIIb and VIIIa. After controlling for overall cerebral atrophy and disease duration, exploratory voxel-wise general linear model analysis revealed distinct cerebellar subregions differentially implicated across cognitive domains in each patient group. In corticobasal syndrome, reduction in grey matter intensity in the left Crus I was significantly correlated with executive dysfunction. In progressive supranuclear palsy, integrity of the vermis and adjacent right lobules I–IV was significantly associated with language performance. These results are consistent with the well-established role of Crus I in executive functions and provide further supporting evidence for vermal involvement in cognitive processing. The current study presents the first detailed exploration of the role of cerebellar atrophy in cognitive deficits in corticobasal syndrome and progressive supranuclear palsy, offering insights into the cerebellum’s contribution to cognitive processing even in neurodegenerative syndromes characterized by motor impairment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document