Does reward improve cognitive control? A comparison between formerly abused vs. neglected (vs. comparison) groups during the rewarded Stroop task

Background: Early-life stress (ELS) such as abuse and neglect have a detrimental effect on cognitive control. In parallel, studies in maltreated samples have documented deficits in reward processing. Yet, surprisingly, few studies have examined whether reward can still improve cognitive control in ELS samples as it does in healthy populations. Objective: To test the extent to which reward may improve cognitive control in different types of maltreated samples. Method: Ninety-eight female university students, age 18–27 years, participated and were split into three groups: those with prior sexual abuse experience (SA, N = 28), those with emotional neglect experience (EN, N = 30) and unaffected comparison women (HC, N = 40). To assess the main objective, participants performed a previously validated version of the rewarded Stroop task. Results: The results suggested that women from the SA group had a larger reward effect (faster performance) than women from the other two groups during rewarded relative to nonrewarded Stroop trials. This was still present when the response mapping was incongruent. Conclusions: Although the data are contrary to expectation, they are consistent with some prior published work. This may suggest that the precise factors (internal motivation, ingratiating behaviour) surrounding reward processing after maltreatment remain to be determined.

Jaar van publicatie:2019