Decision-making under conditions of explicit risk and uncertainty in autistic and typically developing adolescents and young adults.

Adolescence has been characterized as a period of risky and possibly suboptimal decision-making, yet the development of decision-making in autistic adolescents is not well understood. To investigate decision-making in autism, we evaluated performance on 2 computerized tasks capturing decision-making under explicit risk and uncertainty in autistic and non-autistic adolescents/young adults ages 12-22 years. Participants completed the Game of Dice Task (32 IQ-matched participant pairs) to assess decision-making under explicit risk and the modified Iowa Gambling Task (35 IQ-matched pairs) to assess decision-making under uncertainty. Autistic participants overall made riskier decisions than non-autistic participants on the Game of Dice Task, and the odds of making riskier decisions varied by age and IQ. In contrast, the autistic group showed comparable levels of learning over trial blocks to the non-autistic group on the modified Iowa Gambling Task. For both tasks, younger autistic participants performed poorer than their non-autistic counterparts, while group differences diminished in older ages. This age-related pattern suggests positive development during adolescence on risk assessment and decision-making in autism but also implies differential developmental trajectories between groups. These findings also suggest differential performance by the risk type, with additional complex influences of IQ and fluid cognition, which warrants further investigations.

Mechanisms of motivation-cognition interaction: challenges and opportunities.

Recent years have seen a rejuvenation of interest in studies of motivation-cognition interactions arising from many different areas of psychology and neuroscience. The present issue of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience provides a sampling of some of the latest research from a number of these different areas. In this introductory article, we provide an overview of the current state of the field, in terms of key research developments and candidate neural mechanisms receiving focused investigation as potential sources of motivation-cognition interaction. However, our primary goal is conceptual: to highlight the distinct perspectives taken by different research areas, in terms of how motivation is defined, the relevant dimensions and dissociations that are emphasized, and the theoretical questions being targeted. Together, these distinctions present both challenges and opportunities for efforts aiming toward a more unified and cross-disciplinary approach. We identify a set of pressing research questions calling for this sort of cross-disciplinary approach, with the explicit goal of encouraging integrative and collaborative investigations directed toward them.

Video Game Use, Aggression, and Social Impairment in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

We used parent report data to investigate video game playing, aggression, and social impairment in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Parents of autistic adolescents were more likely to report that their child plays video games as a hobby compared to parents of adolescents with typical development and also reported that their children spent more time playing video games. For autistic participants, we found no differences in aggression levels or social impairment when comparing players versus non-players. However, playing video games "more than average," as compared to "average" was associated with greater aggression and greater social impairment on "awareness" and "mannerisms" subscales. Future studies should focus on how type of video game(s) played is associated with these clinically important variables.

Piloting a Novel Daily Living Skills Assessment in Autistic Adolescents and Young Adults.

Background: There are a few ecologically valid measurements of Daily Living Skills (DLS)-a critical component of adaptive functioning (AF)-for autistic adolescents and young adults. This is particularly important given that DLS predict outcomes as autistic adolescents transition to adulthood. Methods: We pilot-tested the assessment section of two modules of the Computerized Functional Skills Assessment and Training program (CFSAT) in 25 autistic (n = 4 female) and 25 non-autistic (n = 6 female) adolescents and young adults to evaluate preliminary feasibility in an autistic sample. Tasks involved using an ATM and ticket-buying machine. We also assessed AF and DLS with a well-validated self-report questionnaire. We examined group differences in performance and relationships between performance on CFSAT and an existing measure of AF and DLS. We also conducted regression analyses to investigate the associations between age, IQ, executive functioning (EF), and CFSAT task performance. Results: All but one autistic participant were able to complete the CFSAT tasks. Autistic participants made more errors, but did not take longer to complete the task, than non-autistic participants. Performance correlated strongly with self-reported AF generally and DLS specifically. The regression analyses revealed that task performance was associated with EF in the autistic group, but not the non-autistic group. Conclusions: These results provide preliminary support for the use of a new performance-based ecologically valid assessment of DLS in an autistic population. Two CFSAT modules were well-tolerated and detected differences in DLS ability. Strong correlations with an existing measure of AF suggest evidence of construct validity. The EF was associated with CFSAT task performance in autistic individuals. Such a tool could help identify individuals who would benefit from a DLS intervention.

Why is this an important issue?: For autistic adolescents and young adults, one of the most important predictors of success after high school are daily living skills (DLS), which are a component of adaptive functioning (AF), or the ability to operate independently when engaged in day-to-day tasks. However, most of the measures used to assess these abilities are parent- or child-report questionnaires, which may lack objectivity. What was the purpose of this study?: The Computerized Functional Skills Assessment and Training program (CFSAT) is an innovative software program that was designed to teach people how to perform daily tasks that require the use of technology. This study piloted two CFSAT modules in a sample of autistic adolescents and young adults. The researchers wanted to see whether the program could be completed by the autistic participants and whether their performance related to an existing measure of DLS and other cognitive measures known to be related to AF. What did the researchers do?: This study piloted the assessment portion of two CFSAT modules in 25 autistic and 25 non-autistic adolescents and young adults to investigate whether it might be a useful measure of DLS skills in autistic individuals. The assessment portion of the program gives participants tasks to complete on a virtual ATM and Metro Ticket Kiosk and records time to completion and accuracy. Participants also used a questionnaire to self-report DLS and general AF and performed cognitive tasks. What were the results of the study?: All but one autistic participant were able to complete both tasks. The autistic group made more errors but did not take more time to complete the tasks compared with the non-autistic group. Performance on the CFSAT was related to self-reported DLS scores on a questionnaire and to scores on cognitive tasks. What do these findings add to what was already known?: Previous work recommended computer-based DLS programs for autistic individuals. Since our results suggest the CFSAT is a viable computer-based program of DLS for autistic adults, CFSAT could help fill a need for DLS tools that are more applicable to real life than currently available questionnaires. Findings provide preliminary support that the CFSAT assessment measures DLS and could be a promising program to further study. What are potential weaknesses in the study?: Weaknesses of our work include that the measures used in this study only assessed two specific tasks encountered in daily living. Data on participants' real-life experience were not fully collected, so the association between the amount of real-life experience on these tasks and computer task performance will require further study. No data asking whether the tasks studied are useful for autistic adolescents and adults were collected. The study was small and consisted of relatively fewer women, which means that results will need to be replicated in a larger sample. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: This work could eventually pave the way for interventions that improve DLS (including the training version of the CFSAT) that may be helpful for teaching autistic individuals technology-related functional skills.

Using the NIH Toolbox to Assess Cognition in Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Despite the clinically significant impact of executive dysfunction on the outcomes of adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), we lack a clear understanding of its prevalence, profile, and development. To address this gap, we administered the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery to a cross-sectional Intelligence Quotient (IQ) case-matched cohort with ASD (n = 66) and typical development (TD; n = 66) ages 12-22. We used a general linear model framework to examine group differences in task performance and their associations with age. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify subgroups of individuals with similar cognitive profiles. Compared to IQ case-matched controls, ASD demonstrated poorer performance on inhibitory control (P < 0.001), cognitive flexibility (P < 0.001), episodic memory (P < 0.02), and processing speed (P < 0.001) (components of Fluid Cognition), but not on vocabulary or word reading (components of Crystallized Cognition). There was a significant positive association between age and Crystallized and Fluid Cognition in both groups. For Fluid (but not Crystallized) Cognition, ASD performed more poorly than TD at all ages. A four-group LPA model based on subtest scores best fit the data. Eighty percent of ASD belonged to two groups that exhibited relatively stronger Crystallized versus Fluid Cognition. Attention deficits were not associated with Toolbox subtest scores, but were lowest in the group with the lowest proportion of autistic participants. Adaptive functioning was poorer in the groups with the greatest proportion of autistic participants. Autistic persons are especially impaired on Fluid Cognition, and this more flexible form of thinking remains poorer in the ASD group through adolescence. LAY SUMMARY: A set of brief tests of cognitive functioning called the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery was administered to adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; n = 66) and typical development (TD; n = 66) ages 12-22 years. Compared to TD, ASD showed poorer performance in inhibiting responses, acting flexibly, memorizing events, and processing information quickly (Fluid Cognition). Groups did not differ on vocabulary or word reading (Crystallized Cognition). Crystallized and Fluid Cognition increased with age in both groups, but the ASD group showed lower Fluid, but not Crystallized, Cognition than TD at all ages. A categorization analysis including all participants showed that most participants with ASD fell into one of two categories: a group characterized by poor performance across all tasks, or a group characterized by relatively stronger Crystallized compared to Fluid Cognition. Adaptive functioning was poorer for participants in these groups, which consisted of mostly individuals with ASD, while ADHD symptoms were lowest in the group with the greatest proportion of TD participants.

Components of Executive Control in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Examination of Dual-Mechanism Accounts.

BACKGROUND: It remains unclear whether executive control (EC) deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represent a failure in proactive EC (engaged and maintained before a cognitively demanding event) or in reactive EC (engaged transiently as the event occurs). We addressed this question by administering a paradigm investigating components of EC in a sample of individuals with ASD and typically developing individuals during functional magnetic resonance imaging. METHODS: During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 141 participants (64 ASD, 77 typically developing) completed a rapid preparing to overcome prepotency task that required participants to respond to an arrow probe based on the color of an initially presented cue. We examined functional recruitment and connectivity in the frontoparietal task control, cingulo-opercular task control, salience, and default mode networks during cue and probe phases of the task. RESULTS: ASD participants showed evidence of behavioral EC impairment. Analyses of functional recruitment and connectivity revealed that ASD participants showed significantly greater activity during the cue in networks associated with proactive control processes, but on the less cognitively demanding trials. On the more cognitively demanding trials, cue activity was similar across groups. During the probe, connectivity between regions associated with reactive control processes was uniquely enhanced on more-demanding (relative to less-demanding) trials in individuals with ASD but not in typically developing individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The current data suggest that rather than arising from a specific failure to engage proactive or reactive forms of EC, the deficits in EC commonly observed in ASD may be due to reduced proactive EC and a consequent overreliance on reactive EC on more cognitively demanding tasks.

Adding fear to conflict: a general purpose cognitive control network is modulated by trait anxiety.

Studies of cognitive control show that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in the detection and resolution of cognitive conflict. However, the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying emotional interference effects are less consistent. We used fMRI during emotional and nonemotional versions of a facial Stroop task to investigate the effects of emotional stimuli on cognitive control. In the full group there was limited evidence that different prefrontal circuits manage conflict arising from emotional and nonemotional distractors. However, individual differences in trait anxiety affected both behavioral performance and neural activity during the emotional task. Relative to low-anxiety (LA) subjects, high-anxiety (HA) subjects showed greater amygdala activity to task-relevant emotional information and impaired performance and greater conflict-related activity in the dACC when emotional content was task-irrelevant. Only LA subjects activated rostral ACC during the emotional task. This is consistent with cognitive models of individual differences that hypothesize deficient control of task-irrelevant emotional information in HA subjects. Additional behavioral and fMRI results from this study may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Proactive control in adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder: Unimpaired but associated with symptoms of depression.

Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in cognitive control, our previous work has shown that preparatory, goal-directed cognitive processing (proactive control) may be preserved in children with ASD. We investigated whether proactive control is intact in adolescents and young adults with ASD, as well as how symptoms of ASD (repetitive behaviors) and psychopathology (Depressive, Anxiety, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Problems) are related to proactive control. Participants were adolescents and young adults with ASD (N = 44) and typical development (TD; N = 44). Proactive control was assessed using a picture-word Stroop paradigm where participants named animals depicted in drawings while ignoring a superimposed written animal word. Interference effects (reaction time (RT) differences between more difficult incongruent trials, where animal pictures and words prompted different responses, and simpler congruent trials, where animal pictures and words prompted the same response) were calculated for two versions of the Stroop Task: a mostly congruent (MC) block, where the majority of trials were congruent, and a mostly incongruent (MI) block, where most trials were incongruent. Proactive control was calculated as the reduction in interference in the MI block in comparison to the MC block. Proactive control did not differ between groups, indicating that proactive control is not impaired in adolescents and young adults with ASD. In ASD, depression symptoms were associated with reduced proactive control. Future research should investigate the effects of interventions targeting depression as well as interventions targeting proactive control processes in individuals with ASD and comorbid depression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Not So Automatic Imitation: Expectation of Incongruence Reduces Interference in Both Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development.

Research has observed evidence for both hypo-(supposedly due to a broken mirror neuron system) and hyper-(thought to be the result of deficits in adaptive control) imitation in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This work sought to adjudicate between these findings using an automatic imitation (AI) paradigm with the novel manipulation of the need to engage adaptive control of imitation. Results demonstrated that ASD participants do not display a specific deficit in AI capability, are able to engage in proactive control of AI, and that relative to a well-matched effector condition, AI is not selectively associated with ASD symptom severity. These data cast doubt upon the notion of impairments in imitation or its control in ASD.

Compensatory Hippocampal Recruitment Supports Preserved Episodic Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

BACKGROUND: The degree to which individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) evidence impairments in episodic memory relative to their typically developing (TD) counterparts remains unclear. According to a prominent view, ASD is associated with deficits in encoding associations between items and recollecting precise context details. Here, we evaluated behavioral and neural evidence for this impaired relational binding hypothesis using a task involving relational encoding and recollection during functional magnetic resonance imaging. METHODS: Adolescents and young adults (nASD = 47, nTD = 60) performed the Relational and Item-Specific Encoding task during functional magnetic resonance imaging, including item and associative recognition testing. We modeled functional recruitment within the medial temporal lobes (MTLs), and connectivity between MTL and the posterior medial (PM) network thought to underlie relational memory. The impaired relational binding model would predict a behavioral deficit driven by aberrant recruitment and connectivity of MTL and the PM network. RESULTS: The ASD and TD groups showed indistinguishable item and associative recognition performance. During relational encoding, the ASD group demonstrated increased hippocampal recruitment, and decreased connectivity between MTL and PM regions relative to the TD group. Within ASD, hippocampal recruitment and MTL-PM connectivity were inversely correlated. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of a behavioral deficit in ASD does not support the impaired relational binding hypothesis. Instead, the current data suggest that increased recruitment of the hippocampus compensates for decreased MTL-PM connectivity to support preserved episodic memory in ASD. These findings suggest a compensatory neurodevelopmental mechanism that may support preserved cognitive domains in ASD: local hyperrecruitment may offset connectivity aberrations in individuals with ASD relative to TD subjects.

Eye-Tracking Reveals Absent Repetition Learning Across the Autism Spectrum: Evidence From a Passive Viewing Task.

In the domain of memory, autism is characterized by difficulties in explicitly remembering the specific order of stimuli, whereas implicit serial order memory appears to be preserved. This pattern is of considerable interest because serial order memory is known to play a critical role in children's language development. Currently, however, few paradigms exist that can effectively probe serial order memory across heterogeneous groups of children, including those who are minimally verbal. We present two experiments, involving 39 adults (20 ASD; 19 TD) and 130 children (86 ASD; 44 TD), that address this issue using an eye-tracking paradigm, which simply required participants to "watch out for a bunny" that appeared in repeating sequences of screen locations. The adults in Experiment 1 all had normative IQs, whereas Experiment 2 included children with and without substantial language and intellectual difficulties. In both experiments gaze latencies and anticipatory fixations to the bunny indicated reliable repetition learning effects in the TD but not the ASD groups. Importantly, we were able to acquire reliable data from around half of the children with significant language impairments in Experiment 2, indicating that the paradigm can shed light on important learning processes in this underrepresented group. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of memory in ASD as well as for the utility of eye-tracking technology to probe repetition learning effects in autism. Autism Res 2020, 13: 1929-1946. © 2020 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC. LAY SUMMARY: Remembering the specific order of stimuli plays an important role in language development and is thought to be a source of difficulty for autistic individuals. Research in this area, however, rarely includes autistic participants who are minimally verbal. Here we develop an eye-tracking paradigm that demonstrates serial order learning difficulties across the autism spectrum. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the role of memory difficulties in the varied language profiles across the autism spectrum.

Emotional false memory in autism spectrum disorder: More than spared.

To advance what is known about how emotions affect memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we examined emotional false memory for negative, positive, and neutrally valenced photographs comprising scripts of everyday events in a verbal IQ-case matched sample of youth ages 8-14 with ASD (N = 38) and typical development (TYP, N = 38). The groups exhibited many similarities. Their task performance during a recognition task including previously seen and unseen photographs was largely comparable. They evidenced high hit rates for previously viewed photographs, and low false alarm rates for lure photographs that were inconsistent with the scripts. Both ASD and TYP groups showed relatively higher false alarms for lure photographs depicting previously unseen causes of scenario outcomes (causal errors) compared to errors for script-consistent lure photographs that showed extra potentially related events (gap-filling errors). In both groups, task performance was associated with verbal working memory, but not attention deficit hyperactivity, anxiety, or depression symptoms. However, the ASD group made more causal and gap-filling errors on negative and positive, but not neutral, lures compared to TYP, indicating that viewing emotionally valenced stimuli made it harder to discriminate previously seen and unseen photographs. For the ASD group, task performance was associated with compulsive, ritualistic, and sameness behaviors and stereotypic and restricted interests. Findings suggest that the integration of cognition and emotion in ASD is altered and associated with the presence of repetitive behaviors. The impact of these results on the lives of individuals with ASD and implications for psychosocial interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Insula-Retrosplenial Cortex Overconnectivity Increases Internalizing via Reduced Insight in Autism.

BACKGROUND: Internalizing symptoms like anxiety and depression are common and impairing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we test the hypothesis that aberrant functional connectivity among three brain networks (salience network [SN], default mode network [DMN], and frontoparietal network [FPN]) plays a role in the pathophysiology of internalizing in ASD. METHODS: We examined the association between resting-state functional connectivity and internalizing in 102 adolescents and young adults with ASD (n = 49) or typical development (n = 53). Seed-to-target functional connectivity was contrasted between adolescents and young adults with ASD and typically developing subjects using a recent parcellation of the human cerebral cortex, and connections that were aberrant in ASD were analyzed dimensionally as a function of parent-reported internalizing symptoms. RESULTS: Three connections demonstrated robust overconnectivity in ASD: 1) the anterior insula to the retrosplenial cortex (i.e., SN-DMN), 2) the anterior insula to the frontal pole (i.e., SN-FPN), and 3) the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to the retrosplenial cortex (i.e., FPN-DMN). These differences remained significant after controlling for age, and no age-related effects survived correction. The SN-DMN connection was associated with greater internalizing in ASD, mediated by a bigger difference between self- and parent-reported internalizing. Control analyses found that the other two connections were not associated with internalizing, and SN-DMN connectivity was not associated with a well-matched control measure (externalizing symptoms). CONCLUSIONS: The present findings provide novel evidence for a specific link between SN-DMN overconnectivity and internalizing in ASD. Further, the mediation results suggest that intact anterior insula-retrosplenial connectivity may play a role in an individual's generating insight into his or her own psychopathology.

Proactive control as a double-edged sword in autism spectrum disorder.

Proactive control refers to the active representation of contextual information to bias cognitive processing and facilitate goal-directed behavior. Despite research suggesting that proactive control may be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the associations between proactive control and clinical symptoms of ASD remain underspecified. Here, we combined a children's version of the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) with gold standard clinical assessments in children with ASD (N = 34) or typical development (TYP; N = 45). After controlling for full-scale IQ (FSIQ), measures of proactive control were similar between ASD and TYP. However, specifically within ASD we observed paradoxical relationships between proactive control and clinical symptoms. Increased reliance on proactive control was associated with reduced attention problems and increased restricted and repetitive behaviors in ASD. Therefore, proactive control appears to represent a double-edged sword in ASD: improved attentional control at the cost of heightened behavioral inflexibility. This represents a compelling and new characterization of the specific association between cognitive control processes isolated in computerized laboratory tasks and the multidimensional cognitive symptoms characteristic of ASD. (PsycINFO Database Record

Humans Integrate Monetary and Liquid Incentives to Motivate Cognitive Task Performance.

It is unequivocal that a wide variety of incentives can motivate behavior. However, few studies have explicitly examined whether and how different incentives are integrated in terms of their motivational influence. The current study examines the combined effects of monetary and liquid incentives on cognitive processing, and whether appetitive and aversive incentives have distinct influences. We introduce a novel task paradigm, in which participants perform cued task-switching for monetary rewards that vary parametrically across trials, with liquid incentives serving as post-trial performance feedback. Critically, the symbolic meaning of the liquid was held constant (indicating successful reward attainment), while liquid valence was blocked. In the first experiment, monetary rewards combined additively with appetitive liquid feedback to improve subject task performance. Aversive liquid feedback counteracted monetary reward effects in low monetary reward trials, particularly in a subset of participants who tended to avoid responding under these conditions. Self-report motivation ratings predicted behavioral performance above and beyond experimental effects. A follow-up experiment replicated the predictive power of motivation ratings even when only appetitive liquids were used, suggesting that ratings reflect idiosyncratic subjective values of, rather than categorical differences between, the liquid incentives. Together, the findings indicate an integrative relationship between primary and secondary incentives and potentially dissociable influences in modulating motivational value, while informing hypotheses regarding candidate neural mechanisms.

Proactive and reactive control during emotional interference and its relationship to trait anxiety.

In classic Stroop paradigms, increasing the proportion of control-demanding incongruent trials results in strategic adjustments in behavior and implementation of cognitive control processes. We manipulated expectancy for incongruent trials in an emotional facial Stroop task to investigate the behavioral and neural effects of proportion manipulation in a cognitively demanding task with emotional stimuli. Subjects performed a high expectancy (HE) task (65% incongruent trials) and a low expectancy (LE) task (35% incongruent trials) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As in standard Stroop tasks, behavioral interference was reduced in the emotional facial Stroop HE task compared to the LE task. Functional MRI data revealed a switch in cognitive control strategy, from a reactive, event-related activation of a medial and lateral cognitive control network and right amygdala in the LE task to a proactive, sustained activation of right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the HE task. Higher trait anxiety was associated with impairment (slower response time and decreased accuracy) as well as reduced activity in left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, and orbitofrontal cortex in the HE task on high conflict trials with task-irrelevant emotional information, suggesting that individual differences in anxiety may be associated with expectancy-related strategic control adjustments, particularly when emotional stimuli must be ignored.

Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance.

When our actions conflict with our prior attitudes, we often change our attitudes to be more consistent with our actions. This phenomenon, known as cognitive dissonance, is considered to be one of the most influential theories in psychology. However, the neural basis of this phenomenon is unknown. Using a Solomon four-group design, we scanned participants with functional MRI while they argued that the uncomfortable scanner environment was nevertheless a pleasant experience. We found that cognitive dissonance engaged the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula; furthermore, we found that the activation of these regions tightly predicted participants' subsequent attitude change. These effects were not observed in a control group. Our findings elucidate the neural representation of cognitive dissonance, and support the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in detecting cognitive conflict and the neural prediction of attitude change.

The neural and computational basis of controlled speed-accuracy tradeoff during task performance.

People are capable, at will, of trading speed for accuracy when performing a task; they can focus on performing accurately at the cost of being slow, or emphasize speed at the cost of decreased accuracy. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of this ability. We show increased baseline activity during speed emphasis in a network of areas related to response preparation and execution, including the premotor areas of the frontal lobe, the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and the dorsolateral prefrontal and left parietal cortices. Furthermore, speed emphasis was associated with reduced transient response-related activation in several of these structures, suggesting that because of the greater baseline activity under speed emphasis, less activation is needed in these structures to reach response threshold, consistent with the assumptions of several computational theories. Moreover, we identify the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as providing the top-down control signal that increases this baseline activity.