Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011 Oct;36(9):1287-93. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.02.002. Epub 2011 Mar 3.
Behavioral persistence is required to reach a goal but may impede adaptations to changing environments. Given the well-documented effects of stress on learning and memory processes, we asked here whether stress affects the persistence of behavior. Participants were exposed to stress or a control condition before they learned an instrumental action to gain a food reward. During learning, we presented several extinction blocks in which the food reward was not presented. Stress rendered participants' responding shortly after initial learning insensitive to the extinction procedure. Overall learning curves remained unaffected. Thus, the present findings suggest that stress increases the resistance of behavior to extinction. The cause of the behavioral persistence after stress may be its habitual form.
行为坚持是达到目标所必需的，但可能会阻碍对不断变化的环境的适应。鉴于压力对学习和记忆过程的影响已有充分的记录，我们在这里询问压力是否会影响行为的坚持。参与者在学习获得食物奖励的工具性动作之前，会暴露于压力或对照条件下。在学习过程中，我们呈现了几个消除块，其中不呈现食物奖励。压力使参与者在初始学习后不久的反应对消除程序不敏感。整体学习曲线不受影响。因此，目前的研究结果表明，压力会增加行为对消除的抵抗力。压力后行为坚持的原因可能是其习惯性形式。
