Does the Brain's Reward Response Occur Even Without Actual Reward? A Response to Fielding et al. (2017)

A recent paper by Fielding et al. (J Gamb Stud, 2017) argued that the brain's reward response could occur without the presentation of actual reward. We suggest that since (a) the event-related potentials reported in this paper are atypical of the previous literature, and, (b) a simpler account of the data in terms of sensitivity to outcome frequency cannot be ruled out, the extent to which the brain's reward response can occur without the presentation of actual reward should remain an open question.