New study by IISc researchers reveals how reward modulates attention in humans

In a new study, the Researchers of the Indian Science Institute (IISC) investigated how a reward expectation affected people’s attention.

Many studies have investigated how an award expectation affected attention and decision in the past. “However, they were insufficient to differentiate whether these processes are managed by the same or different regions and processes in the brain,” IISC said.

In order to address this gap, Sridharan Devarajan and PhD student, an associate professor at the Neuroscience Center, an experiment designed an experiment to examine how a reward expectation modes two basic components of attention: for example, the most prejudice (deviation decision) and the decision to choose the fruit).

According to IISC, researchers often struggled to dismantle the impact of the award on sensitivity and prejudice.

Two -part cognitive task

Mr. Sridharan’s team made trials with 24 participants, each of which served as a two -part cognitive. The first part was tested for reward effects on sensitivity. The participant looks at a screen that shows two Gabor patchs (smooth black-and-white strips used in attention research), one on both sides of the screen. After a very short pause (200 milliseconds), the patches vibrate and the patch orientations may change one (or both). Participants have to inform them if they have determined a change in one of the two patches. They received a monetary prize for each trial they reported correctly.

IISC said that researchers have strategically equipped the awards – while the number of award scores was fixed on one side, while the points changed on the other; In other words, it may be higher or lower than the fixed side. “Participants will notice this based on the points taken during the task, which will lead to their focus on them and they will be more sensitive to small changes that will receive greater prizes,” IISC said.

He also added that the second part was tested for the reward effects on prejudice.

In this case, the only difference was that the points of notification of a “yes” option (deciding on a change), the “no” option (no change deciding) were changed on one side; As before, this reward can be higher or lower than the fixed side. Here, the participants would be prejudiced to select the “Yes” option when they were more rewarding than the “No” option.

Eye movement, brain activity

During the tasks, the researchers measured the eye movements and brain activity of the participants and measured two attention components.

In the first task where sensitivity was examined, the participants paid more attention and their gaze was drawn to the associated side with larger prizes. “However, the prejudices of the decision have not changed, which shows that sensitivity is modified in this task, S said Sridharan. In addition, well -known brain attention signatures, including electrical reactions and oscillations, pointed to higher sensitivity.

In the second part of the task, where prejudices were examined, the researchers observed that the participants had a higher (yes/no) choice of the participants’ options (yes/no). However, during this mission, the researchers were surprised to realize that the gaze of the participants or the brain models did not match those carefully related ones.