Boise State Researcher Finds Perception of Success Drives Brain's Reward Response

A study co-authored by Boise State University faculty member Mariane F.B. Bacelar found that how a person judges their own success drives the brain's reward-related response more than the actual size of their movement errors. The research was published in Biological Psychology.

Bacelar, of the Boise State School of Kinesiology, worked with Juliana O. Parma of San Francisco State University, Keith R. Lohse of Washington University in St. Louis, and Matthew W. Miller of Auburn University on the study, titled "It's subjective! Effects of perceptions of success and objective outcomes on feedback-related brain activity in a motor learning paradigm."

Participants practiced a shuffleboard task under different criteria for what counted as success while researchers recorded brain activity with electroencephalography, or EEG. The team examined both the objective size of movement errors and whether participants viewed each attempt as a success or failure.

Both factors mattered, but the participants' own perception of success accounted for more variation in the brain's reward-related response than the measured error did. "We expected it to matter, but we found that participants' perception of success during the motor task explained more variation in the brain's reward-related response than the actual size of their movement error," Bacelar said.

Bacelar noted that two people can produce the exact same movement outcome, yet their brains may process that feedback very differently if one sees it as a success and the other as a failure. Increasing the rewarding value of an action matters because rewards are linked to dopamine release, which research has connected to memory consolidation, she said.

The work could apply to coaching, physical rehabilitation, and education, where feedback shapes how people learn motor skills involved in walking, writing, talking, and driving. Changing how learners judge their performance does not require complex technology, Bacelar said; task instructions alone can shape that judgment.

Bacelar helped test existing analysis code to check the reliability and reproducibility of the findings, and contributed to interpreting and visualizing the results and writing the manuscript.

The study was published in Biological Psychology.