In demanding listening situations, a listener's motivational state may affect their cognitive investment. Here, we aim to delineate how domain-specific sensory processing, domain-general neural alpha power, and pupil size as a proxy for cognitive investment encode influences of motivational state under demanding listening. Participants (male and female) performed an auditory gap-detection task while the pupil size and the magnetoencephalogram were simultaneously recorded. Task demand and a listener's motivational state were orthogonally manipulated through changes in gap duration and monetary-reward prospect, respectively. Whereas task difficulty impaired performance, reward prospect enhanced it. The pupil size reliably indicated the modulatory impact of an individual's motivational state. At the neural level, the motivational state did not affect auditory sensory processing directly but impacted attentional postprocessing of an auditory event as reflected in the late evoked-response field and alpha-power change. Both pregap pupil dilation and higher parietal alpha power predicted better performance at the single-trial level. The current data support a framework wherein the motivational state acts as an attentional top–down neural means of postprocessing the auditory input in challenging listening situations.

在要求苛刻的倾听情况下，听众的动机状态可能会影响他们的认知投资。在这里，我们旨在描述特定领域的感觉处理、一般领域的神经 alpha 力量和瞳孔大小作为认知投资的代理，如何编码要求倾听下动机状态的影响。参与者 （男性和女性） 执行听觉间隙检测任务，同时记录瞳孔大小和脑磁图。任务需求和听众的动机状态分别通过间隔持续时间和货币奖励前景的变化进行正交操纵。虽然任务难度损害了绩效，但奖励前景增强了它。瞳孔大小可靠地表明了个体动机状态的调节影响。在神经水平上，动机状态不会直接影响听觉感觉处理，但会影响听觉事件的注意力后处理，这反映在晚期诱发反应场和 α 力量变化中。间隙前瞳孔散大和较高的壁叶 α 功率都预示着单次试验水平的表现更好。目前的数据支持一个框架，其中动机状态充当一种注意力自上而下的神经手段，在具有挑战性的聆听情况下对听觉输入进行后处理。