Motivation and Cognitive Control

Todd S. Braver, PhD, is a professor of psychology, neuroscience, and radiology at Washington University, St. Louis, where he has been since 1998. His educational training includes a BS in cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego, in 1992, and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997. Dr. Braver codirects (with colleague Dr. Deanna Barch) the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Laboratory at Washington University. His research uses convergent cognitive neuroscience methods to investigate the neural mechanisms of cognitive control processes. A particular focus is the function of the prefrontal cortex and its interaction with related brain systems in higher cognition, emotion, motivation, personality, and aging. Dr. Braver has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles in some of the premier outlets of his field, including Science, Nature, PNAS, Neuron, and Nature Neuroscience. His research has been continuously funded by the NIH (NIMH, NIA, NIDA), NSF, ONR and private foundations through current and prior grants totaling over $12 million. Dr. Braver has received honors and awards for his research, including being named a McGuigan Young Investigator, an APS Fellow, and NIMH MERIT awardee.

Part 1. Introduction Chapter 1. Motivation and cognitive control Todd Braver Part 2. Rewards, Cognitive Processing and Goal-Directed Control Chapter 2. The role of motivation in visual information processing Marcus Rothkirch and Philippe Sterzer Chapter 3. The impact of reward on attention: Beyond Motivation Brian Anderson and Anthony Sali Chapter 4. Within-trial effects of stimulus-reward associations Ruth Krebs, Jens-Max Hopf and Carsten Boehler Chapter 5. Motivational influences on cognitive control: The role of reward processing Mauricio Delgado, Susan Ravizza and Anthony Porcelli Chapter 6. Parsing the effects of reward on cognitive control Wim Notebaert and Senne Braem Chapter 7. Ideomotor mechanisms of goal-directed behavior Sanne de Wit and Anthony Dickinson Part 3. Affect, Conflict and Self-Regulation Chapter 8. How goals control behavior: The role of action-outcome and reward information Hans Marien, Henk Aarts and Ruud Custers Chapter 9. Affect, motivation, and cognitive scope Philip Gable, Lauren Browning and Eddie Harmon-Jones Chapter 10. Conflicts as aversive signals: Motivation for control adaptation in the service of affect regulation Gesine Dreisbach and Rico Fischer Chapter 11. Vigor and fatigue: How variation in affect underlies effective self-control Blair Saunders and Michael Inzlicht Chapter 12. The waste disposal problem of effortful control on Clay Holroyd Part 4. Age-related changes in cognitive motivation Chapter 13. The teen brain: "Arrested development" in resisting temptation BJ Casey and Adriana Galvan Chapter 14. Lifespan development of adaptive neurocognitive representations: Reciprocal interactions between cognition and motivation Shu-Chen Li and Ben Eppinger Chapter 15. Towards a three-factor motivation-learning framework in normal aging Todd Maddox, Marissa Gorlick and Darrell Worthy Chapter 16. Linkages between age-related changes in the costs of cognitive engagement, motivation, and behavior Thomas Hess and Brian Smith Chapter 17. Age-related changes in motivation: Do they influence emotional experience across adulthood and old age? Ishabel Vicaria and Derek Isaacowitz