Monetary Incentive Delay Task

Background

The Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task is a psychological test used to study how the brain processes rewards and punishments. It is often used in conjunction with brain imaging equipment such as fMRIs. Brian Knutson and colleagues introduced the paradigm in their 2000 landmark study on visualizing and mapping the specific brain regions people use to anticipate rewards and punishments. Results showed that striatal and mesial forebrain brain circuits are heavily involved in incentive-driven behavior. Sarah M. Helfinstein and colleagues published a child-friendly MID analog, called the "Piñata Task", for children ages 8-14 in 2013.

The basic MID task is a simple reaction time task coupled with anticipatory cues. Depending on the condition (Reward vs. Punishment), incentive cues signal that a successful response (a fast response) to a stimulus will have a positive monetary outcome (Reward condition: win money; Punishment condition: no loss of money), while an unsuccessful response (a slow response) will have a negative monetary outcome (Reward condition: no money is won; Punishment condition: loss of money). Non-incentive cues on the other hand signal that fast (or slow) responses have no monetary consequences.

The Go/Nogo Monetary Incentive Delay (Go/Nogo MID) task, published by Brendan Behan and colleagues in 2015, is a hybrid behavioral paradigm that combines the classic MID task with a Go/Nogo response task. While the original MID task only measures motivation and motor speed, the Go/Nogo MID task forces the participant to either rapidly act or actively suppress their movement depending on the cue. This allows researchers to study how rewards and punishments affect impulse (inhibitory) control.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond MID runs four phases:

1. Baseline: Presents a basic 10-trial response time paradigm without cues. Participants are required to respond as fast as possible to the presentation of a white square. Based on the baseline response times, a target response time for the following phases is established (so that roughly 60% of targets can be responded to successfully).

2. Control Condition: Runs the basic MID task with incentive and non-incentive cues preceding the white square. However, there are no differences in monetary consequences for incentive and non-incentive targets. Participants can neither win any money nor lose any.

3. Reward Condition: Runs the basic MID task. Incentive cues signal that successful responses to the target are rewarded with money ($1). No money is won if participants respond too slowly. Non-incentive cues have no monetary consequences: fast or slow responses are neither rewarded nor punished.

4. Punishment Condition: Runs the basic MID task. Incentive cues signal that successful responses to the target are not punished. However, money is lost if participants respond too slowly (-$1). Non-incentive cues have no monetary consequences: fast or slow responses are neither rewarded nor punished.

The order of the 'Reward/Punishment' conditions can be counterbalanced by groupnumber assignment. Each of the three conditions (Control, Reward, Punishment) runs 100 trials total with 20 incentive and 80 non-incentive trials. The trial order is randomized with the constraint that incentive trials cannot be presented consecutively. Each trial presents the cue for 500ms. The target is presented after a random delay of 4-4.5 seconds. The target duration is participant-specific (see above). Response feedback is provided for 500ms and followed by a variable intertrial interval to round out the complete trial duration to 6 seconds. The incentive and non-incentive cues are colorful squares (e.g. blue for incentive; green for non-incentive); different colors are used in each condition.

What it Measures

The Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task to induce anticipation of reward (and punishment) and measures incentive motivation

Psychological Domains

• Incentive Motivation: The influence of incentives on physical effort
• Approach vs. Avoidance Motivation: The difference of incentives on physical effort in reward and punishment situations
• Attention Allocation: Cues act as signals that force the brain to instantly prioritize attention to prepare for the target.
• Motor Preparation: Ability to use visual cues to prepare for physical action
• Feedback-Based Learning: Ability to update future expectations and future effort based on response feedback

Main Performance Metrics

• Processing Speed: mean correct response time to incentive and non-incentive trials in each condition (Control, Reward, Punishment); measure of motivation
• Success Variable: Overall proportion correct responses to incentive and non-incentive trials in each condition (Control, Reward, Punishment)

Psychiatric Conditions

The MID task has been used with the following patient groups

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
• Bipolar Disorder
• Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)
• Schizophrenia
• ** Autism Spectrum Disorder (AD)**

Test Variations

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Monetary Incentive Delay Task.

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Knutson, B., Westdorp, A., Kaiser, E., & Hommer, D. (2000). FMRI visualization of brain activity during a monetary incentive delay task. Neuroimage, 12(1), 20-27

Helfinstein SM, Kirwan ML, Benson BE, Hardin MG, Pine DS, Ernst M, Fox NA. Validation of a child-friendly version of the monetary incentive delay task. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2013 Aug;8(6):720-6. doi: 10.1093/scan/nss057. Epub 2012 May 7. PMID: 22569186; PMCID: PMC3739918.

Xie, W. Z., Yan, C., Ying, X. Y., Zhu, S. Y., Shi, H. S., Wang, Y., ... & Chan, R. C. (2014). Domain-specific hedonic deficits towards social affective but not monetary incentives in social anhedonia. Scientific reports, 4.

Joseph, Jane, Zhu, X., Benca, C., Baik, G., Davies, F., & Kelly, T.H. (2015). Adolescents are driven by incentive valence, not magnitude, on the monetary incentive delay task. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 146, E151.

De Leeuw, M., Kahn, R., & Vink, M. (2015). Fronto-striatal Dysfunction During Reward Processing in Unaffected Siblings of Schizophrenia Patients. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 41(1), 94-103.

Balodis, I., & Potenza, M. (2015). Anticipatory reward processing in addicted populations: A focus on the monetary incentive delay task. Biological Psychiatry, 77(5), 434-44.

Behan, B., Stone, A., and Garavan, H. (2015). Right Prefrontal and Ventral Striatum Interactions Underlying Impulsive Choice and Impulsive Responding. Human Brain Mapping, 36, 187–198.

Mori, A., Okamoto, Y., Okada, G., Takagaki, K., Jinnin, R., Takamura, M., . . . Yamawaki, S. (2016). Behavioral activation can normalize neural hypoactivation in subthreshold depression during a monetary incentive delay task. Journal of Affective Disorders, 189, 254-62.

Dennison MJ, Rosen ML, Sambrook KA, Jenness JL, Sheridan MA, McLaughlin KA. Differential Associations of Distinct Forms of Childhood Adversity With Neurobehavioral Measures of Reward Processing: A Developmental Pathway to Depression. Child Dev. 2019 Jan;90(1):e96-e113. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13011. Epub 2017 Dec 21. PMID: 29266223; PMCID: PMC6013316.