Abstract
Studies suggest that reward and emotion are interdependent. However, there are discrepancies regarding the interaction between these variables. Some researchers speculate that the inconsistent findings may be due to different targets being used. Although reward and emotion both affect attention, it is not clear whether their impacts are independent. This study examined the impact of reward anticipation on emotion processing for different targets. A cue-target paradigm was used, and behavior and eye-tracking data were recorded in an emotion or sex recognition task under the conditions of reward and non-reward anticipation. The results showed that when the target was related to the emotional attribute of the stimulus, the reward promoted the processing target information, thereby generating reward-oriented attention. When the target was unrelated to the emotional attributes of the stimulus, the reward did not promote the processing target information, and at the same time, individuals had negative emotional biases toward the emotional faces. The results revealed that, in addition to affecting the attention to emotional faces independently, the target regulated the promotion of reward anticipation to emotional attention and attention bias toward negative stimuli.
Highlights
In the process of socialization, reward is often associated with positive emotions such as pleasure and satisfaction
ANOVA results show that the interaction between target and emotion was significant in terms of accuracy [F(1,18) = 17.15, p = 0.001, ηp2 = 0.49, and BF10 = 1083.61] and RT [F(1,18) = 4.97, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.22, BF10 = 1.24]
The simple effect test found that in the sex recognition task, there was a higher accuracy (p < 0.05) and a shorter RT (p < 0.05) under the positive condition, indicating superior processing toward positive faces, and that there was no significant difference in the emotion recognition task
Summary
In the process of socialization, reward is often associated with positive emotions such as pleasure and satisfaction. Both reward and emotion have affective significance, defined as either negative or positive value to the organism (Pessoa, 2009). Existing studies suggest that reward and emotion impact each other. Reward induces positive emotions (Berridge and Robinson, 2003). The reward circuit in the human brain is activated when an individual imagines a pleasant scene while reading a story (Costa et al, 2010) or stares at a photograph of a lover (Aron et al, 2005). Emotion, especially negative emotion, has an impact on reward. During a gambling task, the activation of the reward circuit is lower in college students with high depressive symptoms than in those without such symptoms (Wei, 2015)
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