Approaching the Bad and Avoiding the Good: Lateral Prefrontal Cortical Asymmetry Distinguishes between Action and Valence

The article I chose was called “Approaching the Bad and Avoiding the Good: Lateral Prefrontal Cortical Asymmetry Distinguishes between Action and Valence.” The researchers of this article were Elliot T. Berkman and Matthew D. Lieberman. I chose this article because I thought it was a good article about good and bad motivational choices.

“Goal-relevant stimuli in the environment typically can be categorized into goal-consistent stimuli that should be approached or goal-inconsistent stimuli that should be avoided. Once this categorization takes place, the stimuli to move toward or way from a stimulus as well as action is known as approached or avoidance motivation.” One of the determining qualities of human goal pursuit is that we have the capacity to approach negative and avoid positive stimuli of that behavior serves our ultimate goal. It has been showed that the prefrontal cortical asymmetry is associated with choosing both good and bad stimuli. The prefrontal cortical region is also associated with planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality, making decisions, and acting on internal goals.

The aim of this study was to separate the roles of stimulus valence and action motivation in hemispheric asymmetry using fMRI. There were a total of 17 participants who were all right handed ranging in ages of 19 to 28 years old that were recruited from the UCLA community and were paid to participate. Participants had to read an article about food preferences and were shown pictures on a computer screen of food that was used to measure pleasant and unpleasant foods. There were a total of four categories: fungi, desserts, meats, and insects. All categories were already pre-rated about valence. The fungi and insects were rated unpleasant, and the desserts and meats were rated pleasant.

The results included that the prefrontal asymmetry is associated with action motivation and not stimulus valence. Researchers found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was activated during both actions pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. This information can be used with associating motivations when it comes to pursuing goal processes.  

Source:

Berkman, E. T., & Lieberman, M. D. (2010). Approaching the Bad and Avoiding the Good: Lateral Prefrontal Cortical Asymmetry Distinguishes between Action and Valence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(9), 1970-1979. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.