Stussi Yoann, Ferrero Aude, Pourtois Gilles, Sander David
1Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
2Laboratory for the study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression (E3Lab), Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
NPJ Sci Learn. 2019 Apr 24;4:4. doi: 10.1038/s41539-019-0043-3. eCollection 2019.
Pavlovian aversive conditioning is a fundamental form of learning helping organisms survive in their environment. Previous research has suggested that organisms are prepared to preferentially learn to fear stimuli that have posed threats to survival across evolution. Here, we examined whether enhanced Pavlovian aversive conditioning can occur to stimuli that are relevant to the organism's concerns beyond biological and evolutionary considerations, and whether such preferential learning is modulated by inter-individual differences in affect and motivation. Seventy-two human participants performed a spatial cueing task where the goal-relevance of initially neutral stimuli was experimentally manipulated. They subsequently underwent a differential Pavlovian aversive conditioning paradigm, in which the goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant stimuli served as conditioned stimuli. Skin conductance response was recorded as an index of the conditioned response and participants' achievement motivation was measured to examine its impact thereon. Results show that achievement motivation modulated Pavlovian aversive learning to goal-relevant vs. goal-irrelevant stimuli. Participants with high achievement motivation more readily acquired a conditioned response to goal-relevant compared with goal-irrelevant stimuli than did participants with lower achievement motivation. However, no difference was found between goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant stimuli during extinction. These findings suggest that stimuli that are detected as relevant to the organism can induce facilitated Pavlovian aversive conditioning even though they hold no inherent threat value and no biological evolutionary significance, and that the occurrence of such learning bias is critically dependent on inter-individual differences in the organism's concerns, such as achievement motivation.
巴甫洛夫厌恶条件作用是一种基本的学习形式，有助于生物体在其环境中生存。先前的研究表明，生物体倾向于优先学习恐惧那些在进化过程中对生存构成威胁的刺激。在此，我们研究了巴甫洛夫厌恶条件作用是否会增强，以应对与生物体的关注点相关的刺激，这些刺激超出了生物学和进化的考虑范围，以及这种优先学习是否会受到个体在情感和动机方面差异的调节。72名人类参与者执行了一项空间线索任务，其中最初中性刺激的目标相关性是通过实验进行操纵的。随后，他们接受了一种差异巴甫洛夫厌恶条件作用范式，其中与目标相关和与目标无关的刺激作为条件刺激。记录皮肤电导反应作为条件反应的指标，并测量参与者的成就动机，以检验其对条件反应的影响。结果表明，成就动机调节了巴甫洛夫对与目标相关和与目标无关刺激的厌恶学习。与成就动机较低的参与者相比，成就动机高的参与者更容易对与目标相关的刺激而非与目标无关的刺激获得条件反应。然而，在消退过程中，与目标相关和与目标无关的刺激之间没有发现差异。这些发现表明，被检测为与生物体相关的刺激即使没有内在威胁价值和生物学进化意义，也能诱导巴甫洛夫厌恶条件作用的增强，并且这种学习偏差的发生关键取决于生物体在关注点方面的个体差异，如成就动机。
