Psychology

Reward expectation yields distinct effects on sensory processing and decision making in the human brain

A. Sengupta and D. Sridharan

Reward expectation robustly guides attention and decisions. This study, conducted by Ankita Sengupta and Devarajan Sridharan, shows that space-specific versus choice-specific reward expectations separately modulate sensory sensitivity and decisional bias, with distinct neural signatures (ERP gain, alpha lateralization, pre-stimulus alpha suppression) revealing dissociable mechanisms linking reward, attention, and choice.