Thus, they apparently focus on obtaining higher value rewards to the detriment of obtaining more rewards of all quality.
Moreover, in situations in which tokens are given at the beginning of the trial and are not replenished, these primates return the tokens associated with higher value rewards first, thus ultimately limiting their acquisition of high-value foods (since they no longer possess the tokens necessary to acquire them).
The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a major role in goal-directed behaviours, but it is unclear whether it plays a role in breaking away from a high-value reward in order to explore for better options.
These findings suggest that high-value reward may facilitate human higher-order inhibitory processes that are independent of conscious awareness, which provides insights into the brain processes that underpin motivational modulation of cognitive control.
Second, we explore potential differences in neural responses to clearly visible versus briefly presented high-value reward cues.
Such research indicated that even when they are briefly presented, high-value reward cues can increase performance on various tasks (e.g., solving mathematical equations).
First, it may be the case that the VS is specifically involved in creating associations between cues and responses, in this case, between high-value reward cues and the recruitment of resources in the service of task performance.
With regard to the interpretation of the behavioral data, we inferred that subliminal and supraliminal high-value reward cues improved performance to the same extent, as coin visibility did not interact with coin value.
Results indicated that supraliminal, but not subliminal, high-value reward cues engaged brain areas involved in reward processing (VS) and task performance (supplementary motor area, motor cortex, and superior temporal gyrus).
