The price of learning good from bad: motivational costs and benefits in cognition and affect

Abstract

The studies presented in this thesis addressed the interactions between motivation, emotion, and cognition. The starting point for the research in this thesis was the question how inter-individual neurophysiological differences can be related to reward- and threat-related learning processes. Central to this question was the idea that individual differences in resting-state electrophysiological activity reflect motivational reward and punishment drives, and would therefore be predictive for acquiring associations in n reinforcement learning and fear conditioning tasks. The first part of the thesis focused on resting-state EEG theta/beta ratio in relation to reinforcement learning, and on EEG orienting responses in fear conditioning. In the second section of this thesis the focus was shifted to the interaction between threat, reward and attention. I presented studies on how stimuli that are predictive of negative (aversive noise, monetary loss) and positive events (monetary gain) exert an influence on spatial attention. Furthermore, I have examined the contributions of trait anxiety on attentional control and motor inhibition. The third section was concerned with the influence of mental fatigue as a result of prolonged periods of cognitive performance on cognitive processing and motivational responses to reward and loss.