An important aspect of executive function is the ability to resist the pull of reward stimuli, especially when they may lead to losses. This general concept has been operationalized in different laboratory tasks that pit the pull of a reward stimulus against the need to withhold or delay a response to avoid loss. Deficits in reward processing have been linked to impulse disorders in adolescents that are predisposing for drug abuse (Ernst et al., 2003) or to adults suffering from lesions to orbitofrontal regions (Fellows & Farah, 2005). We administered two tasks to assess reward processing.
