Monetary Reinforcement Research Articles

Ecological momentary assessment of delay discounting, reward valuation, and craving in very light cigarette users.

Heightened delay discounting has been linked to adverse smoking cessation outcomes, including among light cigarette users. Few studies have evaluated delay discounting's proposed mechanism, preference reversal (concurrent increases in valuation of/craving for desired objects), and none have done so in naturalistic settings. We examined how person-level delay discounting moderated the within-person association between cigarette valuation and craving among very light daily cigarette users who were financially incentivized to abstain. Forty participants completed a baseline delay-discounting task and intermittent ratings of cigarette valuation and craving during the incentivized abstinence attempt. Subjects earned monetary rewards for abstinence on a descending schedule (e.g., $20 on Days 1 and 2 and $2.50 on Days 9 and 10). Consistent with preference reversals, there was a positive association between cigarette valuation and craving. This relation was moderated by delay discounting (stronger among those with low discounting rates) and by monetary reinforcement amount (stronger on days with low reinforcement). Additionally, subjects were more likely to report stronger cravings on days with high monetary reinforcement, with this effect moderated by delay discounting (stronger among those with low discounting rates). The results suggest that heightened delay discounting may not confer risk for preference reversal among very light daily cigarette users who are attempting abstinence.

Reinforcement feedback impairs locomotor adaptation and retention.

Locomotor adaptation is a motor learning process used to alter spatiotemporal elements of walking that are driven by prediction errors, a discrepancy between the expected and actual outcomes of our actions. Sensory and reward prediction errors are two different types of prediction errors that can facilitate locomotor adaptation. Reward and punishment feedback generate reward prediction errors but have demonstrated mixed effects on upper extremity motor learning, with punishment enhancing adaptation, and reward supporting motor memory. However, an in-depth behavioral analysis of these distinct forms of feedback is sparse in locomotor tasks. For this study, three groups of healthy young adults were divided into distinct feedback groups [Supervised, Reward, Punishment] and performed a novel locomotor adaptation task where each participant adapted their knee flexion to 30 degrees greater than baseline, guided by visual supervised or reinforcement feedback (Adaptation). Participants were then asked to recall the new walking pattern without feedback (Retention) and after a washout period with feedback restored (Savings). We found that all groups learned the adaptation task with external feedback. However, contrary to our initial hypothesis, enhancing sensory feedback with a visual representation of the knee angle (Supervised) accelerated the rate of learning and short-term retention in comparison to monetary reinforcement feedback. Reward and Punishment displayed similar rates of adaptation, short-term retention, and savings, suggesting both types of reinforcement feedback work similarly in locomotor adaptation. Moreover, all feedback enhanced the aftereffect of locomotor task indicating changes to implicit learning. These results demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of reinforcement feedback on locomotor adaptation and demonstrate the possible different neural substrates that underly reward and sensory prediction errors during different motor tasks.

Differential deficits in social versus monetary reinforcement learning in schizophrenia: Associations with facial emotion recognition.

Despite evidence that individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) have an intact desire for social relationships, they have small social networks and report high levels of loneliness. Difficulty with reinforcement learning (RL), the ability to update behavior based on feedback, may inhibit the formation and maintenance of social relationships in SZ. However, impaired RL in SZ has largely been demonstrated via monetary tasks. Thus, it remains unclear whether SZ are similarly impaired in social and monetary RL, or whether social-specific factors may further inhibit their ability to learn from social feedback. Thirty-one individuals with SZ and 31 healthy controls (HCs) participated in a RL paradigm to test hypotheses about social versus monetary RL. SZ exhibited impaired RL compared to HCs in both social and monetary tasks. Further, a Group × Task interaction demonstrated that SZ was more impaired when learning from social than monetary reinforcement, F(1, 59) = 5.99, p = .017. This differential deficit to social RL was not accounted for by reported pleasure from social feedback, which did not differ between groups. Instead, SZ had poorer emotion recognition than HCs, t(1, 60) = 4.80, p < .001, particularly for negative emotions, and controlling for this eliminated the differential social RL impairment. These results suggest the possibility that difficulty recognizing social cues, especially those indicating negative feedback, may relate to a reduced ability to learn from others' feedback. Thus, future research could elucidate whether targeting these emotion recognition difficulties in treatment could serve as a potential mechanism for improving social functioning in SZ. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Oxytocin modulates neural activity during early perceptual salience attribution

Leading hypotheses of oxytocin’s (OT) role in human cognition posit that it enhances salience attribution. However, whether OT exerts its effects predominantly in social (vs non-social) contexts remains debatable, and the time-course of intranasal OT’s effects’ on salience attribution processing is still unknown. We used the social Salience Attribution Task modified (sSAT) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled intranasal OT (inOT) administration, between-subjects design, with 54 male participants, to test existing theories of OT’s role in cognition. Namely, we aimed to test whether inOT would differently affect salience attribution processing of social stimuli (expressing fearfulness) and non-social stimuli (fruits) made relevant via monetary reinforcement, and its neural processing time-course. During electroencephalography (EEG) recording, participants made speeded responses to emotional social (fearful faces) and non-emotional non-social (fruits) stimuli - which were matched for task-relevant motivational salience through their (color-dependent) probability of monetary reinforcement. InOT affected early (rather than late, P3b and LPP) EEG components, increasing N170 amplitude (p = .041) and P2b latency (p .001; albeit not of P1), regardless of stimuli’s (emotional) socialness or reinforcement probability. Fear-related socialness affected salience attribution processing EEG (p .05) across time (N170, P2b and P3b), being later modulated by reinforcement probability (LPP). Our data suggest that OT’s effects on neural activity during early perception, may exist irrespective of fear-related social- or reward-contexts. This partially supports the tri-phasic model of OT (which posits OT enhances salience attribution in an early perception stage regardless of socialness), and not the social salience nor the general approach-withdrawal hypotheses of OT, for early salience processing event-related potentials.

Supplemental Material for Differential Deficits in Social Versus Monetary Reinforcement Learning in Schizophrenia: Associations With Facial Emotion Recognition

Supplemental Material for Differential Deficits in Social Versus Monetary Reinforcement Learning in Schizophrenia: Associations With Facial Emotion Recognition

Social media sites users' choice between utilitarian and informational reinforcers assessed using temporal discounting.

This study provides a first approach to the use of the Multiple-Choice Procedure in social media networks use, as well as empirical evidence for the application of the Behavioral Perspective Model to digital consumption behavior in young users in conjunction with a methodology based on behavioral economics. The participants were part of a large university in Bogotá, Colombia, and they received an academic credit once they completed the online questionnaire. A total of 311 participants completed the experiment. Of the participants, 49% were men with a mean age of 20.6 years (SD = 3.10, Range = 15-30); 51% were women with a mean age of 20.2 years (SD = 2.84, Range = 15-29). Among the total participants, 40% reported that they used social networks between 1 and 2 h a day, 38% between 2 and 3 h, 16% for 4 h or more, and the remaining 9% used them for 1 h or less per day. The factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) allowed us to identify a statistically significant effect of the delay of the alternative reinforcer, that is, the average crossover points were higher when the monetary reinforcer was delayed 1 week, compared to the immediate delivery of the monetary reinforcer. There was no statistically significant effect of the interaction between the magnitude of the reinforcer and the delay time of the alternative reinforcer. This study supports the relative reinforcing value of an informational reinforcement consequence such as social media use, which is sensitive to both the magnitude of reinforcement and the delay in delivery as individual factors. The findings on reinforcer magnitude and delay effects are consistent with previous research that have applied behavioral economics to the study of non-substance-related addictions.

Escalating schedules of incentives increase physical activity with no differences between deposit and no-deposit groups: A systematic replication.

Physical inactivity has increasingly affected public health in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic as it is associated with chronic diseases such as arthritis, cancer, and heart disease. Contingency management has been shown to increase physical activity. Therefore, the present study sought to evaluate the effects of an escalating schedule of monetary reinforcement with a reset contingency on physical activity, as compared between 2 counterbalanced groups in which a monetary deposit of $25 was either required (deposit group) or not (no-deposit group). Twenty-five adults wore Fitbit accelerometers to monitor step counts. An ABA reversal design was used; in the 2 baseline phases, no programmed contingencies were in place for step counts. During intervention, step goals were set using a modified 70th percentile schedule with a 7-day window: Reaching the first goal would result in $0.25, and incentives increased by $0.25 for each subsequent day in which the goal was met. Failure to reach a goal resulted in a reset of the monetary incentive value to $0.25. Ten out of 12 participants from the deposit group were determined to be responders to intervention, whereas 8 out of 13 participants from the no-deposit group were determined to be responders to intervention. Overall, there were no significant differences between the groups' step counts. However, the deposit group's intervention was cheaper to implement, which suggests that deposit contracts are a viable modification for physical activity interventions.

A novel human laboratory alcohol self-administration paradigm for medication screening: Modeling the ability to resist drinking and heavy drinking

BackgroundHuman laboratory analogues of drinking behavior provide an efficient, cost-effective mechanistic evaluation of a medication signal on drinking. We developed a novel alcohol self-administration paradigm which models the ability to resist drinking and heavy drinking. MethodsWe compared a de-escalating schedule of monetary reinforcement (n=16, 50% female) to no schedule (n=16, 50% female) on the ability to resist drinking (i.e., latency to start drinking) and subsequent ad-libitum alcohol consumption of preferred alcoholic beverage in participants with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Participants completed two laboratory sessions designed to model the ability to resist drinking using stress (versus neutral imagery, within-subject factor) as a prime for drinking. ResultsParticipants consumed more alcohol with no schedule (74.2%) versus with the de-escalating reinforcement schedule (40.3%,). The de-escalating schedule reduced alcohol consumption by 49%. Eighty-one percent of participants drank heavily with no schedule and this was reduced with the schedule. Use of the de-escalating schedule also increased the latency to pour and sip the first drink. Participants poured and sipped alcohol faster following stress imagery (vs. neutral), had greater craving, and consumed more alcohol in the first 30 minutes. ConclusionsOur novel alcohol self-administration model generated heavy drinking. Over 80% of participants without reinforcement consumed more than 2/3 of their preferred alcoholic beverage designed to increase blood alcohol levels to 0.12 mg% within a 2-hour window. Our model was sensitive to stress, and the de-escalating schedule highlighted stress effects on drinking. Thus, this model is ideal for a cross-over design to test medications for AUD.

Contingency management and cognitive behavior therapy for smoking cessation among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder: Design and methodology of a randomized clinical trial

BackgroundSmoking is a prevalent concern among Veterans, especially those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite the availability of interventions for smoking cessation, these treatments have not been as effective among Veteran populations, particularly Veterans with PTSD. The present study seeks to describe the methods of a randomized clinical trial examining the efficacy of CPT-SMART, a multidimensional treatment combining cognitive processing therapy (CPT) for PTSD, smoking cessation counseling, pharmacotherapy, and contingency management (CM) compared to a yoked comparison group. MethodsOne hundred twenty Veterans with PTSD who smoke cigarettes will be enrolled. All participants will receive CPT in addition to counseling and pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation. Participants will be randomized to the CPT-SMART condition, which includes monetary reinforcement that is contingent on bioverification of smoking abstinence (i.e., contingency management), or a yoked comparison with monetary reinforcement matched to the participant to whom they are yoked. The primary outcome is bioverified smoking abstinence at the 6-month follow-up appointment. ConclusionIf shown efficacious, a combined PTSD and smoking treatment plus incentive-based approach for smoking could be implemented into specialty PTSD programs. The positive public health impact of reducing smoking among Veterans with PTSD could be enormous as it would prevent significant smoking-related morbidity and mortality.

P 11 Motor adaptation learning and the effects of reinforcement in the acute phase post-stroke

Introduction: Motor recovery after stroke relies on reorganization processes that mainly occur within the critical period , a time-limited window of heightened neuronal plasticity in the first few weeks after stroke 1 . These processes are assumed to partly depend on training-dependent motor learning, which may assist in establishing new motor control policies. While chronic stroke patients have been shown to exhibit motor adaptation in response to perturbations in a reinforcement-dependent fashion 2 , it remains unclear if this is also true early after stroke. Therefore, we probed whether acute stroke patients can perform motor adaptation and if motor adaptation can be enhanced by monetary reinforcement. Patients & Methods: Hospitalized patients within the first two weeks after ischemic stroke suffering from hemiparesis and an age-matched healthy control group performed a joystick-based visuomotor adaptation task. Using a crossover design, subjects received neutral or performance-based reinforcement feedback in the form of monetary reward and punishment during adaptation learning. Results: Acute stroke patients exhibited motor adaptation with their paretic hand ( p <.01) and retained the novel learned motor control policies. Patients showed increased learning rates after offline consolidation in the retention period ( p <.05), whereas control subjects featured earlier improvements in learning rates during the learning period ( p <.05). While monetary reward and punishment feedback amplified motor adaptation compared to the neutral condition ( p <.05), reward seemed to be a more suitable framework to support visuomotor learning. Conclusion: We demonstrate for the first time that acute stroke patients can perform motor adaptation by rapidly adjusting motor control policies. From a mechanistic perspective, motor adaptation is often conceptualized as a dual-rate model 3 , including two parallel learning components acting on different timescales. Patients seem to rely on a slower learning component more heavily, while learning of controls aligns stronger with the fast component. The former is associated with slower unlearning, which may benefit effective motor rehabilitation as newly adapted motor control policies can be retained over a prolonged period and thus integrated into daily life. While both reward and punishment enhanced motor adaptation compared to neutral feedback, reward seemed to elicit the most beneficial effects on motor learning early after stroke. In summary, our findings suggest that motor adaptation may enhance relearning of motor control policies and might thus amplify recovery in a reinforcement-dependent fashion. These findings may impact future treatment protocols aiming at improving motor function in the critical period after stroke. References 1 Krakauer, 2015. Oxford Textbook of Neurorehabilitation, 55–64. 2 Quattrocchi et al., 2017. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 88(9), 730–736. 3 Smith et al., 2006. PLoS Biol, 4(6), e179.

New Directions for Motivational Incentive Interventions for Smoking Cessation.

BackgroundMotivational incentive interventions are highly effective for smoking cessation. Yet, these interventions are not widely available to people who want to quit smoking, in part, due to barriers such as administrative burden, concern about the use of extrinsic reinforcement (i.e., incentives) to improve cessation outcomes, suboptimal intervention engagement, individual burden, and up-front costs.PurposeTechnological advancements can mitigate some of these barriers. For example, mobile abstinence monitoring and digital, automated incentive delivery have the potential to lower the clinic burden associated with monitoring abstinence and administering incentives while also reducing the frequency of clinic visits. However, to fully realize the potential of digital technologies to deliver motivational incentives it is critical to develop strategies to mitigate longstanding concerns that reliance on extrinsic monetary reinforcement may hamper internal motivation for cessation, improve individual engagement with the intervention, and address scalability limitations due to the up-front cost of monetary incentives. Herein, we describe the state of digitally-delivered motivational incentives. We then build on existing principles for creating just-in-time adaptive interventions to highlight new directions in leveraging digital technology to improve the effectiveness and scalability of motivational incentive interventions.ConclusionsTechnological advancement in abstinence monitoring coupled with digital delivery of reinforcers has made the use of motivational incentives for smoking cessation increasingly feasible. We propose future directions for a new era of motivational incentive interventions that leverage technology to integrate monetary and non-monetary incentives in a way that addresses the changing needs of individuals as they unfold in real-time.

An investigation of the reinforcing value of video game playing relative to concurrently available monetary alternatives.

Video game playing (VGP) has received recent attention as a result of sharing many similarities with other addictive behaviors. Behavioral economic models are commonly used to understand drug use and other addictive behaviors and may similarly inform conceptual models of VGP. The present study employed behavioral economic principles to conceptualize relative reinforcing value for playing video games compared to concurrently available alternative potential monetary reinforcers. Participants (N = 81) played three video games picked to represent games of low, medium, and high quality (i.e., OutDrive, Forza Motorsport 1, and Forza Motorsport 7), with quality designations based on the research teams' assessment of various features of the game (e.g., graphics, sound, immersion) as well as the game's market value at the time the study was conducted. Participants played each game for 10 min and completed Visual Analog Scales and a multiple-choice procedure (MCP) designed to assess relative reinforcing value at various time points during and after each session. As hypothesized, both subjective ratings and relative reinforcing value increased as the designated quality of the game increased. More specifically, the high-quality game was rated as more fun and likable and had a higher MCP crossover point than the medium and low-quality games. Like other behavioral addiction studies, results suggest that methodologies and behavioral measures commonly used in drug administration literature can be effectively applied to VGP. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

An evaluation of token and monetary reinforcement on physical activity exhibited by adults with intellectual disabilities in a group home setting.

An evaluation of token and monetary reinforcement on physical activity exhibited by adults with intellectual disabilities in a group home setting.

Money talks: The influence of extrinsic motivators on social cognition in early episode psychosis

Amotivation is a central feature of psychosis that can lead to underperformance on a variety of tasks, including neurocognitive testing; however, there is some evidence that neurocognitive impairments resulting from low effort can be ameliorated with the use of monetary reinforcement. While cross-sectional data has also shown that amotivation is associated with social cognitive performance, limited research has examined the directionality of this relationship, and whether monetary reinforcement can similarly reduce these impairments. In the present study, 35 patients with early psychosis and 35 community controls were randomized to either a reward condition in which they received monetary reinforcement for every correct response on a theory of mind (ToM) task, or a non-reward condition in which no feedback was provided. A significant group by condition interaction emerged after adjusting for premorbid intelligence and global neurocognition, F(1, 63) = 7.76, p = .007. Post-hoc analyses revealed that performance on the ToM task was similar across conditions for controls, whereas early psychosis patients in the reward condition had clinically and statistically significant differences in ToM performance compared to patients in the non-reward condition. These results suggest that social cognitive task performance may underrepresent actual ability in the early stages of psychosis. Future research is needed to discriminate the relative effects of monetary reinforcement, corrective feedback, and/or a combination of these factors to better understand performance differences between conditions, which appeared to be unique to early psychosis patients.

Pilot Cohorts for Development of Concurrent Mobile Treatment for Alcohol and Tobacco Use Disorders

Alcohol and tobacco are the 2 most frequently used drugs in the United States and represent the highest co-occurrence of polysubstance use. The objective of this study was to refine an intervention combining mobile contingency management with cognitive-behavioral telephone counseling for concurrent treatment of alcohol and tobacco use disorders. Two cohorts (n = 13 total, n = 5 women) of participants were enrolled, with 10/13 completing treatment and 7/13 completing the 6-month follow-up. At enrollment, participants were drinking a mean of 28.9 drinks per week (SD = 14.1), with a mean of 14.7 heavy drinking days in the past month (SD = 9.9), and a mean of 18.1 cigarettes per day (SD = 11.7). Treatment included a mobile application that participants used to record carbon monoxide and breath alcohol content readings to bioverify abstinence. Participants received up to 4 sessions of phone cognitive-behavioral therapy and monetary reinforcement contingent on abstinence. In cohort 1, 4/6 participants reported abstinent or low-risk drinking post-monitoring. Six weeks post quit-date, 2/6 participants were CO-bioverified abstinent from tobacco use, with 2/6 in dual remission. These results were maintained at 6-months. In cohort 2, 6/7 reported abstinent or low-risk drinking post-monitoring, 5 weeks post quit-date. At the post-monitoring visit, 5/7 were CO-bioverified abstinent from smoking, with 5/7 in dual remission. At 6-months, 3/7 reporting abstinent or low-risk drinking, 1/7 had bioverified abstinence from smoking, with 1/7 in dual remission. Observations suggest that it is possible to develop a concurrent mobile treatment for alcohol and tobacco use disorders.

Evidence that instrumental conditioning requires conscious awareness in humans

Instrumental conditioning is a crucial substrate of adaptive behaviour, allowing individuals to selectively interact with the stimuli in their environment to maximise benefit and minimise harm. The extent to which complex forms of learning, such as instrumental conditioning, are possible without conscious awareness is a topic of considerable importance and ongoing debate. In light of recent theoretical and empirical contributions casting doubt on the early demonstrations of unconscious instrumental conditioning, we revisit the question of its feasibility in two modes of conditioning. In Experiment 1, we used trace conditioning, following a prominent paradigm (Pessiglione et al., 2008) and enhancing its sensitivity. Success in this task requires participants to learn to approach reward-predictive stimuli and avoid punishment-predictive stimuli through monetary reinforcement. All stimuli were rendered unconscious using forward-backward masking. In Experiment 2, we used delay conditioning to shorten the stimulus-outcome delay, retaining the structure of the original task but presenting the stimuli under continuous flash suppression to allow for an overlap of the stimulus, action, and outcome, as well as replacing monetary reinforcement with primary appetitive reinforcement. In both experiments, we found evidence for absence of unconscious instrumental conditioning, showing that participants were unable to learn to adjust their behaviour to approach positive stimuli and avoid negative ones. This result is consistent with evidence that unconscious stimuli fail to bring about long-term behavioural adaptations, and provides empirical evidence to support theoretical proposals that consciousness might be necessary for adaptive behaviour, where selective action is required.

A Causal Role for Gastric Rhythm in Human Disgust Avoidance

SummaryRotten food, maggots, bodily waste—all elicit disgust in humans. Disgust promotes survival by encouraging avoidance of disease vectors1 but is also implicated in prejudice toward minority groups; avoidance of environmentally beneficial foods, such as insect protein; and maladaptive avoidance behavior in neuropsychiatric conditions.2, 3, 4, 5 Unlike fear, pathological disgust is not improved substantially by exposure therapy clinically,6 nor in experimental work does behavioral avoidance of disgusting images habituate following prolonged exposure.7,8 Under normal physiological conditions, perception of disgusting stimuli disrupts myoelectrical rhythms in the stomach,9, 10, 11, 12, 13 inducing gastric dysrhythmias that correlate with neural signatures of disgust.11 However, the causal role of gastric rhythm in disgust avoidance is unknown. We manipulated gastric rhythm using domperidone, a peripheral dopamine D2/D3 antagonist and common anti-emetic, at a dose (10 mg) that acts to convert gastric dysrhythmias to normal rhythms.9 In a preregistered, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design in 25 healthy volunteers (aged 18–25), we measured the effects of domperidone on core disgust avoidance, using eye tracking to measure implicit (oculomotor) avoidance of disgusting images (feces) before and after an “exposure” intervention (monetary reinforcement for looking at disgusting images).7,8 We find that domperidone significantly reduces oculomotor disgust avoidance following incentivized exposure. This suggests that domperidone may weaken the “immunity” of disgust to habituation, putatively by reducing gastric dysrhythmias during incentivized engagement with disgusting stimuli. This indicates a causal role for disgust-related visceral changes in disgust avoidance, supporting the hypothesis that physiological homeostasis contributes to emotional experience.

Attitude Moderates the Relation between Frequency of Media Multitasking in the Classroom and Delay Discounting

The present study examined whether the attitude toward texting in the classroom moderates the relation between delay discounting and frequency of texting in the classroom. College students completed a survey to assess their attitude and frequency of texting in the classroom. Based on this information, students were stratified into four groups: Appropriate-Frequent, Appropriate-Infrequent, Inappropriate-Frequent, and Inappropriate-Infrequent. The groups were then compared on the degree of delay discounting of hypothetical monetary reinforcers. In the delay-discounting task, participants made repeated choices between $1,000 available after a delay and an equal or lesser amount of money available immediately. The results showed that the attitude toward texting in the classroom moderates the relation between the degree of delay discounting and the frequency of texting in the classroom. Among students who perceive texting in the classroom as inappropriate, those who frequently text in the classroom showed greater rates of delay discounting than those who infrequently text in the classroom, whereas there was no difference in students who perceive texting in the classroom as appropriate. Impulsive characteristics of texting in the classroom from a behavioral economic perspective are discussed.

Differential color tuning of the mesolimbic reward system

Visual wavelengths are not only associated with the subjective experience of color but also have long been thought to regulate affect. Here we examined the attracting rewarding properties of opposite ends of the wavelength spectrum, as well as their individual variation. As reward is multifaceted, we sought convergent evidence from subjective and objective behavioral and attentional indices, as well as its neural reward system bases. On average, short (blue) relative to long (red) wavelengths were judged subjectively more pleasant and had objectively greater behavioral and attentional salience, regulating speed of simple color discriminations and perception of temporal order. Consistent with reward, these color effects were magnified following monetary reinforcement. Pronounced individual differences in color effects were related to reward but not punishment sensitivity, with blue relative to red preference associated with high relative to low reward sensitivity. An fMRI study revealed these individual differences were supported by color-dependent functional coupling between the visual cortices and mesolimbic reward circuitry. Our findings reveal the reward bases of color, demonstrating color is a potent regulator of perception, action, and neural dynamics.

Contribution of alcohol- and cigarette-related cues to concurrent reinforcer choice in humans

Drug-related cues have been extensively studied for their contributions to decision-making processes involving drug consumption. Less studied is how drug-related stimuli may impact decisions involving outcomes not directly related to substance use. Studies using concurrent choice tasks have demonstrated that cocaine and cannabis cues result in robust and selective biases for monetary reinforcers contiguous with those cues. The purpose of this study was to provide a conceptual replication of these findings with alcohol and cigarettes. Participants recruited using crowdsourcing completed a cued concurrent choice task involving presentation of two cues (one drug and one neutral) followed by concurrent monetary offers below each image. Alcohol (Experiment 1; N = 103) and cigarette (Experiment 2; N = 256) visual cues were evaluated. Participants with hazardous alcohol use and current cigarette use showed greater-than-indifference selection for the alcohol- (p = .004) and cigarette-cued (p = .02) monetary choices, respectively. Qualitative responses indicated that the most popular rationale for responding was “image quality” despite images having no explicit impact on the reinforcer received. Low alcohol use (p = .03) and non-cigarette using controls (p < .001) showed an avoidance bias with lower-than-indifference selection for drug-cued choices. These findings replicate and extend observations that spatially contiguous drug-related cues can bias decisions involving concurrently presented non-drug reinforcers.