Effect of reward and punishment on no-risk decision-making in young men: An EEG study

Decision-making is a process that allows adapting behavior in response to feedback to achieve a goal. Previous studies have suggested that the cerebral cortex shows different activation patterns in response to feedback. However, the effects of reward and punishment on learning contexts and decision-making are not clear. Thus, this experiment compared the effects of reward and punishment on behavior and the electroencephalographic activity of cortical areas related to decision-making in a no-risk context. Twenty healthy males were asked to perform a decision-making task under two conditions in which the goal was to finish in the shortest time possible. In the reward condition, the more points the participant accumulated the sooner the task ended, while in the punishment condition, the more points accumulated the longer the task lasted. Lower reaction times were found in the reward condition, characterized by a higher absolute power of the slow bands in almost all the cortices recorded. Changes in the interhemispheric correlation were also obtained in the comparison of the two feedback conditions. Results suggest that changes in the type of feedback affect cortical functionality and behavioral execution during decision-making, with the reward being related to a quick emotional response strategy and punishment associated with slower and, likely, more reasoned responses.