University of Evansville, Department of Psychology, United States.
Behav Brain Res. 2021 Aug 27;412:113431. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113431. Epub 2021 Jun 24.
While our understanding of appetitive motivation includes accounts of rich cognitive phenomena, such as choice, sensory-specificity and outcome valuation, the same is not true in aversive processes. A highly sophisticated picture has emerged of Pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction, but progress in aversive motivation has been somewhat limited to these fundamental behaviors. Many differences between appetitive and aversive stimuli permit different kinds of analyses; a widely used procedure in appetitive studies that can expand the scope of aversive motivation is Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT). Recently, this motivational transfer effect has been used to examine issues pertaining to sensory-specificity and the nature of defensive control in avoidance learning. Given enduring controversies and unresolved criticisms surrounding avoidance research, PIT offers a valuable, well-controlled procedure with which to similarly probe this form of motivation. Furthermore, while avoidance itself can be criticized as artificial, PIT can be an effective model for how skills learned through avoidance can be practically applied to encounters with threatening or fearful stimuli and stress. Despite sensory-related challenges presented by the limited aversive unconditioned stimuli typically used in research, transfer testing can nevertheless provide valuable information on the psychological nature of this historically controversial phenomenon.
虽然我们对食欲动机的理解包括了丰富的认知现象，如选择、感觉特异性和结果评估，但在厌恶过程中并非如此。巴甫洛夫式的恐惧条件反射和消退已经有了非常复杂的描述，但厌恶动机的进展在某种程度上仅限于这些基本行为。食欲刺激和厌恶刺激之间的许多差异允许进行不同类型的分析；在食欲研究中广泛使用的一种程序可以扩展厌恶动机的范围，即条件性味觉转移（PIT）。最近，这种动机转移效应被用于研究与感觉特异性和回避学习中防御控制性质有关的问题。鉴于回避研究中存在持久的争议和未解决的批评，PIT 提供了一种有价值的、控制良好的程序，可以用同样的方法来探究这种动机形式。此外，尽管回避本身可能被批评为人为的，但 PIT 可以作为一种有效的模型，说明通过回避习得的技能如何实际应用于与威胁或恐惧刺激和压力的相遇。尽管研究中通常使用的有限厌恶无条件刺激带来了与感觉相关的挑战，但转移测试仍然可以提供有关这一历史上有争议现象的心理性质的有价值信息。
