Quail Stephanie L, Morris Richard W, Balleine Bernard W
a Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory , Brain & Mind Centre, The University of Sydney , Camperdown , NSW , Australia.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2017 Apr;70(4):675-685. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1149198. Epub 2016 Mar 15.
Predictive learning is known to influence instrumental responding for reward. Cues associated with an instrumental outcome can influence performance in two ways: (a) by selectively promoting actions associated with the outcome predicted by the cue (specific transfer), and (b) by increasing motivation and the vigour of instrumental responding (general transfer). To examine these two distinct processes in humans we developed a novel behavioural task in which participants were able to liberate junk-food snacks from a virtual vending machine. Additionally, the relationship between stress and cue-driven reward seeking was examined using participant scores on the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). Reward-paired cues were found to separately bias action selection and influence the rate of responding for rewards. Furthermore, the effects of reward-paired cues on the rate of responding for reward was influenced by increased stress and anxiety. Increased levels of stress and anxiety were associated particularly with changes in cue-driven response vigour; whereas high levels of stress and anxiety were associated with elevated responding above baseline in the presence of a cue associated with a non-rewarding outcome, participants with low levels of anxiety and stress showed appropriate suppression of responding during this cue. These differences in performance between high and low anxiety and stress participants provides initial evidence that, as has been demonstrated in rodents, stress affects the influence of cue-driven response vigour in humans.
已知预测性学习会影响对奖励的工具性反应。与工具性结果相关的线索可以通过两种方式影响表现：（a）通过选择性地促进与线索所预测结果相关的行动（特定迁移），以及（b）通过增加动机和工具性反应的活力（一般迁移）。为了在人类中研究这两个不同的过程，我们开发了一种新颖的行为任务，让参与者能够从虚拟自动售货机中获取垃圾食品零食。此外，使用参与者在抑郁、焦虑和压力量表（DASS）上的得分来研究压力与线索驱动的奖励寻求之间的关系。发现与奖励配对的线索分别会偏向行动选择并影响对奖励的反应速率。此外，与奖励配对的线索对奖励反应速率的影响受到压力和焦虑增加的影响。压力和焦虑水平的升高尤其与线索驱动的反应活力变化有关；而在存在与无奖励结果相关的线索时，高压力和焦虑水平与高于基线的反应增加有关，低焦虑和压力水平的参与者在该线索期间表现出对反应的适当抑制。高焦虑和低焦虑及压力参与者在表现上的这些差异提供了初步证据，表明正如在啮齿动物中所证明的那样，压力会影响人类中线索驱动的反应活力的影响。
