Background: Non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) is a common problem associated with dangerous outcomes. Dysfunction of goal‐directed behavioral control may contribute to NSSI. To test this, we used a novel experimental paradigm (Pavlovian‐to‐Instrumental Transfer, PIT) to test whether patients with NSSI utilize Pavlovian conditioned stimuli (CSs) during goal‐directed control of ongoing behavior.Methods: Thirty‐five depressed patients with NSSI (D‐NSSI) and thirty‐four healthy controls performed a PIT task. We measured the influence of positive and negative background CSs on instrumental responses for rewards.Results: The results showed that D‐NSSI performed significantly lower PIT than controls, and PIT measures were negatively correlated with NSSI frequency. Furthermore, in a subset of patients exhibiting high levels of compulsivity, PIT positively moderated the relationship between compulsivity and NSSI frequency.Conclusions: These results indicate that D‐NSSI patients have difficulties in using different CSs to control ongoing behavior in a goal‐directed manner, and the dysfunction of goal‐directed control may contribute to NSSI.

Background: Previous research has found an association between attractiveness and personality traits, but the neural mechanisms are largely unknown. Method: We used a Stroop-like paradigm combined with EEG recordings to investigate how personality traits affect the perception of facial and vocal attractiveness. Twenty-three female participants classified the attractiveness of male faces and male voices paired with positive or negative personality trait words. Results: The behavioral results indicate that personality trait words that are semantically congruent with attractiveness levels facilitate the perception of attractiveness, whereas incongruent trait information produces the opposite effect. Event-related potentials revealed that the influence of personality trait words on facial attractiveness was primarily related to motivated attention as indicated by the late positive component. In the voice task, personality trait words impacted vocal attractiveness processing first during semantic integration (N400 component) and then modulated motivated attention. Conclusions: These results suggest that alleged personality traits modify attractiveness processing in faces and voices in relatively late and partially modality-specific stages.

Learning from rewards and punishments relies on prediction errors and belief updating, yet it remains unclear how motivational context reshapes the precision-weighting of prediction errors and neural mechanism while learning in volatile environments. We employed a probabilistic classification task with electroencephalography (EEG) within a hierarchical Bayesian framework to compare reward and punishment learning. Our findings indicate that participants performed better in reward context compared to punishment context. Fitting the hierarchical Bayesian model revealed that punishment drives faster Bayesian belief updates, although these did not translate into improved behavioral outcomes. At the neural level, higher-level precision-weighted prediction error (pwPE₂) was significantly positively correlated with feedback related negativity (FRN) amplitude in the punishment context, and the positive effect of pwPE₂ on P300 amplitude was stronger in the punishment than the reward condition. These results reveal the characteristics of electrophysiological activities under different motivational contexts and highlight differences in the neural mechanisms underlying reward and punishment learning.

An emerging body of research has shown that requiring participants to make concurrent JOLs during learning can reactively influence memory performance, a phenomenon known as the reactivity effect. However, it remains unclear whether making JOLs can also reactively alter metacognitive control. The present study addressed this question across three types of materials: unrelated word pairs, general knowledge questions, and related word pairs. After studying each item, participants decided whether they would choose to restudy it. In JOL conditions, participants made an item-by-item JOL during learning, while in no-JOL conditions, no such judgment was required. Across all materials, making JOLs reliably increased the proportion of items selected for restudy, indicating a robust reactivity effect on metacognitive control. These findings suggest that JOL reactivity should be considered not only in relation to memory performance but also in relation to metacognitive control.

Previous research has found an association between attractiveness and personality traits, but the neural mechanisms are largely unknown. We used a Stroop-like paradigm combined with EEG recordings to investigate how personality traits affect the perception of facial and vocal attractiveness. Twenty-three female participants classified the attractiveness of male faces and male voices paired with positive or negative personality trait words. The behavioral results indicate that personality trait words that are semantically congruent with attractiveness levels facilitate the perception of attractiveness, whereas incongruent trait information produces the opposite effect. Event-related potentials revealed that the influence of personality trait words on facial attractiveness was primarily related to motivated attention as indicated by the late positive component. In the voice task, personality trait words impacted vocal attractiveness processing first during semantic integration (N400 component) and then modulated motivated attention. These results suggest that alleged personality traits modify attractiveness processing in faces and voices in relatively late and partially modality-specific stages.