Counteracting effect of threat on reward enhancements during working memory

Abstract

Cognitive performance has been shown to be enhanced when performance-based rewards are at stake. On the other hand, task-irrelevant threat processing has been shown to have detrimental effects during several cognitive tasks. Crucially, the impact of reward and threat on cognition has been studied largely independently of one another. Hence, our understanding of how reward and threat simultaneously contribute to performance is incomplete. To fill in this gap, the present study investigated how reward and threat interact with one another during a cognitive task. We found that threat of shock counteracted the beneficial effect of reward during a working memory task. Furthermore, individual differences in self-reported reward-sensitivity and anxiety were linked to the extent to which reward and threat interacted during behaviour. Together, the current findings contribute to a limited but growing literature unravelling how positive and negative information processing jointly influence cognition.

Keywords:

• Reward
• Emotion
• Threat
• Cognition
• Working memory

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Brenton McMenamin and Mihai Sirbu for discussions and feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Support for this work was provided in part by the National Institute of Mental Health [grant number R01 MH071589].