Animal Behavior and Neuroscience Lab.
Department of Biostatistics.
Behav Neurosci. 2022 Aug;136(4):285-292. doi: 10.1037/bne0000505. Epub 2022 Feb 17.
Surprising violations of outcome expectancies have long been known to enhance the of Pavlovian cues; that is, the rate at which the cue enters into further associations. The adaptive value of such enhancements resides in promoting new learning in the face of uncertainty. However, it is unclear whether associability enhancements reflect increased associative plasticity within a particular behavior system, or whether they can facilitate learning between a cue and any arbitrary outcome, as suggested by attentional models of conditioning. Here, we show evidence consistent with the latter hypothesis. Violating the outcome expectancies generated by a cue in an appetitive setting (feeding behavior system) facilitated subsequent learning about the cue in an aversive setting (defense behavior system). In addition to shedding light on the nature of associability enhancements, our findings offer the neuroscientist a behavioral tool to dissociate their neural substrates from those of other, behavior system- or valence-specific changes. Moreover, our results present an opportunity to utilize associability enhancements to the advantage of counterconditioning procedures in therapeutic contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
长期以来，人们已经知道，令人惊讶的结果预期违反会增强巴甫洛夫线索的关联性；也就是说，线索进一步关联的速度。这种增强的适应价值在于促进不确定性下的新学习。然而，尚不清楚这种关联性增强是反映了特定行为系统内的关联可塑性增加，还是如条件作用的注意模型所建议的那样，可以促进线索与任何任意结果之间的学习。在这里，我们提供了与后一种假设一致的证据。在一个有吸引力的环境中（进食行为系统）违反线索产生的结果预期，促进了随后在一个令人厌恶的环境中（防御行为系统）对线索的学习。除了阐明关联性增强的本质外，我们的研究结果为神经科学家提供了一种行为工具，使他们能够将其神经基质与其他行为系统或效价特异性变化的神经基质区分开来。此外，我们的研究结果提供了一个机会，可以利用关联性增强来促进治疗环境中的条件反射程序。
