title: Independent effects of motivation and spatial attention in the human visual cortex.
abstract: Motivation and attention constitute major determinants of human perception and action. Nonetheless, it remains a matter of debate whether motivation effects on the visual cortex depend on the spatial attention system, or rely on independent pathways. This study investigated the impact of motivation and spatial attention on the activity of the human primary and extrastriate visual cortex by employing a factorial manipulation of the two factors in a cued pattern discrimination task. During stimulus presentation, we recorded event-related potentials and pupillary responses. Motivational relevance increased the amplitudes of the C1 component at ∼70 ms after stimulus onset. This modulation occurred independently of spatial attention effects, which were evident at the P1 level. Furthermore, motivation and spatial attention had independent effects on preparatory activation as measured by the contingent negative variation; and pupil data showed increased activation in response to incentive targets. Taken together, these findings suggest independent pathways for the influence of motivation and spatial attention on the activity of the human visual cortex.
authors.affiliation: Courant Research Centre Text Structures, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Mareike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bayer
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental, Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental, Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.|Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vanlessen
authors.affiliation: Courant Research Centre Text Structures, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Annika
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grass
authors.affiliation: Courant Research Centre Text Structures, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Annekathrin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schacht
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department of Experimental, Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pourtois
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: C1; ERP; motivation; reward; spatial attention