Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Jun;6(3):311-20. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq041. Epub 2010 May 7.
To examine how stress affects cognitive functioning, individual differences in trait vulnerability (punishment sensitivity) and state reactivity (negative affect) to social evaluative threat were examined during concurrent reinforcement learning. Lower trait-level punishment sensitivity predicted better reward learning and poorer punishment learning; the opposite pattern was found in more punishment sensitive individuals. Increasing state-level negative affect was directly related to punishment learning accuracy in highly punishment sensitive individuals, but these measures were inversely related in less sensitive individuals. Combined electrophysiological measurement, performance accuracy and computational estimations of learning parameters suggest that trait and state vulnerability to stress alter cortico-striatal functioning during reinforcement learning, possibly mediated via medio-frontal cortical systems.
为了研究压力如何影响认知功能，在同时进行的强化学习过程中，个体特质脆弱性（惩罚敏感性）和状态反应性（对社会评价威胁的负面情绪）的差异被进行了研究。较低的特质水平惩罚敏感性预示着更好的奖励学习和更差的惩罚学习；而在更敏感的个体中则发现了相反的模式。状态水平负性情绪的增加与高度敏感个体的惩罚学习准确性直接相关，但在敏感度较低的个体中，这些测量值则呈反比关系。综合电生理测量、表现准确性和学习参数的计算估计表明，特质和状态对压力的脆弱性在强化学习期间改变了皮质纹状体的功能，可能通过中额前皮质系统来介导。
