title: Reward associations reduce behavioral interference by changing the temporal dynamics of conflict processing.
abstract: Associating stimuli with the prospect of reward typically facilitates responses to those stimuli due to an enhancement of attentional and cognitive-control processes. Such reward-induced facilitation might be especially helpful when cognitive-control mechanisms are challenged, as when one must overcome interference from irrelevant inputs. Here, we investigated the neural dynamics of reward effects in a color-naming Stroop task by employing event-related potentials (ERPs). We found that behavioral facilitation in potential-reward trials, as compared to no-reward trials, was paralleled by early ERP modulations likely indexing increased attention to the reward-predictive stimulus. Moreover, reward changed the temporal dynamics of conflict-related ERP components, which may be a consequence of an early access to the various stimulus features and their relationships. Finally, although word meanings referring to potential-reward colors were always task-irrelevant, they caused greater interference compared to words referring to no-reward colors, an effect that was accompanied by a relatively early fronto-central ERP modulation. This latter observation suggests that task-irrelevant reward information can undermine goal-directed behavior at an early processing stage, presumably reflecting priming of a goal-incompatible response. Yet, these detrimental effects of incongruent reward-related words were absent in potential-reward trials, apparently due to the prioritized processing of task-relevant reward information. Taken together, the present data demonstrate that reward associations can influence conflict processing by changing the temporal dynamics of stimulus processing and subsequent cognitive-control mechanisms.
authors: Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America. ruthmkrebs@gmail.com
authors: Ruth M
authors: RM
authors: Krebs
authors: Carsten N
authors: CN
authors: Boehler
authors: Lawrence G
authors: LG
authors: Appelbaum
authors: Marty G
authors: MG
authors: Woldorff
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D057190:Stroop Test