Goals matter: Amplification of the motivational significance of the feedback when goal impact is increased

Abstract

Performance monitoring (PM) entails the continuous evaluation of actions and their outcomes. At the electrophysiological level, PM has been consistently related to two event-related brain potentials (ERPs): the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and the P3. In a previous withinsubject crossover design study, we showed that feedback's goal impact (i.e., its importance to one's goal) modulated these ERP components, yet in opposing directions. Although high goal impact was associated with a larger P3, the preceding FRN had a lower amplitude than in the low impact condition. We sought to extend these findings here by adopting a between-subjects design for a pure goal impact manipulation. Sixty-eight participants completed a Go/No Go Task while 64-channel electroencephalography was recorded concurrently. They were randomly assigned to either a high or low goal impact condition, manipulated through instructions on the supposed task's diagnosticity, while reward probability was kept similar between conditions. Replicating our previous results, we found that high goal impact yielded a marginally lower FRN, but substantially larger P3 during PM than low goal impact, without arousal or performance differences. Moreover, a principal component analysis confirmed these opposing directions of goal impact modulation. Overall, these results dovetail with the assumption that goal impact influences PM processes.

When the outcome is different than expected: Subjective expectancy shapes reward prediction error at the FRN level

“…Relevance was understood in this study as the degree to which a stimulus was informative about the satisfaction status of pursued goals (see also Moors, ). Moreover, in another recent EEG study, we found evidence that goal relevance understood as impact increased the P3b during PM (Severo et al, , ). Impact corresponded to the amount of goal satisfaction that was signaled by the feedback stimulus.…”

“…for each type of feedback separately; and (h) low-pass digital filtering of the individual average data (30 Hz). 4 In accordance with previous ERP studies focused on feedback-based PM (Aarts & Pourtois, 2012;Bismark, Hajcak, Whitworth, & Allen, 2013;Ferdinand et al, 2012;Fischer & Ullsperger, 2013;Pfabigan et al, 2011;Severo et al, 2017Severo et al, , 2018von Borries et al, 2013;Walentowska et al, 2016;Walsh & Anderson, 2012) as well as the electrophysiological properties of the current data set (see Figure 3), the FRN was defined as the mean voltage within 250-300 ms after feedback onset over frontal and frontocentral electrodes along the midline (Fz and FCz pooled together). The P3b amplitude was measured as a mean voltage between 350 and 600 ms after feedback onset at centroparietal and parietal electrodes (CPz and Pz pooled together).…”

“…A speeded go/no-go task, which was previously validated in different EEG studies (Aarts & Pourtois, 2012;Koban et al, 2012;Severo et al, 2017Severo et al, , 2018Vocat et al, 2008;Walentowska et al, 2016Walentowska et al, , 2018, was used in the current study. Cues, targets, and nontargets consisted of an arrow presented in the center of the screen against a white background.…”

“…Usually, a larger P3b is observed for unexpected than expected action outcomes (von Borries et al, ). In addition to unexpectedness, it is typically found that negative feedback gives rise to a larger P3b than positive feedback (de Bruijn, Mars, & Hulstijn, ; Fischer & Ullsperger, ; Walentowska, Moors, Paul, & Pourtois, ; but see Hajcak et al, ; Severo, Walentowska, Moors, & Pourtois, , , for a reversed pattern, as well as Yeung & Sanfey, , for the lack of a valence effect), suggesting that action value updating likely depends on both expectedness and valence as well as on the context within which this updating takes place. The second goal of our study was to assess action value updating at the P3b level when different combinations of reward probability and expectancy were created and compared.…”

“…In the current study, participants performed a speeded go/ no-go task that was previously used and validated extensively in different EEG studies in the past (e.g., Aarts & Pourtois, 2012;Koban, Pourtois, Bediou, & Vuilleumier, 2012;Severo et al, 2017Severo et al, , 2018Vocat, Pourtois, & Vuilleumier, 2008;Walentowska et al, 2016;Walentowska, Paul, Severo, Moors, & Pourtois, 2018). We chose this specific task setting as it allowed us to introduce subtle variations in reward probability across different blocks without changing the stimuli or task demands between them.…”