Broad Audience Title

Children's Motivation to Social and Non-social Reward Stimuli

Scientific Title

Using ERPs to Investigate Reward Processing in Children

By Hannah Wisniewski
Biomedicine
iCons Year 4
2018
Executive Summary 

Aberrant patterns in reward processing have been highlighted as an underlying risk factor in the development of psychopathology. Typically, reward processing has been examined using object-based rewards (e.g., money). However, limited research has explored differences in processing non-social and social stimuli in children, let alone how differences in social contexts can affect the neural markers of motivation and reward processing in this age group.

The current study investigated differences in neural processing stimuli portraying distinct social reward and nonsocial reward contexts. Children between the ages of 6-10 were asked to view and rate 150 pictures. Pictures were divided into an interpersonal reward category, which included social interaction, an intrapersonal reward category, which included happy faces, a non-social reward category, which included object-based reward images, and a neutral category. Two event-related potentials (ERPs), the N400 and the late-positive potential (LPP), were used to examine motivational salience toward reward images. Parent report of the child’s behavior was also collected.

Problem Keywords 
motivation
children
social context
Scientific Keywords 
psychopathology
neural markers
reward processing

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