Degni Luigi A E, Dalbagno Daniela, Starita Francesca, Benassi Mariagrazia, di Pellegrino Giuseppe, Garofalo Sara
Center for studies and research in Cognitive Neuroscience (CsrNC), Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Psychometrics and Neuropsychology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2022 Aug 16;16:945503. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.945503. eCollection 2022.
When repeatedly paired with rewarding outcomes (i.e., Pavlovian conditioning), environmental cues may acquire predictive and motivational significance and later enhance instrumental responding for the same (i.e., outcome-specific transfer) or motivationally similar (i.e., general transfer) outcomes. Although outcome-specific and general Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) are characterized by different neural substrates and behavioral mechanisms, general transfer has never been studied in isolation from outcome-specific transfer in humans. The first aim of the present study was to test whether the general transfer effect could emerge in isolation and independently of outcome-specific transfer. Our results showed that general transfer can be elicited without the concurrent presence of outcome-specific transfer, supporting the idea that outcome-specific and general transfer can be studied independently of each other. The second aim of the present study was to clarify whether the affordance-like properties of the outcomes can affect the general transfer. In fact, a critical difference in current studies on general transfer concerns the use of cues associated with outcomes for which an action was previously learned (or not) during the instrumental training. This apparently minor difference affects the affordance-like properties of the outcome and may also be transferred to the cue, in turn impacting general transfer. Results revealed a general transfer of the same magnitude regardless of whether cues were associated with reward earned or not during instrumental conditioning. These findings increase the current knowledge on the incentive motivational mechanism behind general transfer, indicating that it is independent of the motor features of the outcome.
当与奖励结果反复配对时（即巴甫洛夫条件反射），环境线索可能会获得预测和动机意义，并随后增强对相同结果（即特定结果转移）或动机上相似结果（即一般转移）的工具性反应。尽管特定结果和一般的巴甫洛夫到工具性转移（PIT）具有不同的神经基础和行为机制，但在人类中，一般转移从未与特定结果转移分开进行研究。本研究的第一个目的是测试一般转移效应是否可以独立于特定结果转移而出现。我们的结果表明，在没有特定结果转移同时存在的情况下也可以引发一般转移，这支持了特定结果转移和一般转移可以相互独立研究的观点。本研究的第二个目的是阐明结果的类似可供性属性是否会影响一般转移。事实上，当前关于一般转移的研究中的一个关键差异涉及在工具性训练期间使用与之前学习过（或未学习过）某种行为的结果相关的线索。这个看似微小的差异会影响结果的类似可供性属性，并且也可能转移到线索上，进而影响一般转移。结果显示，无论线索在工具性条件反射期间是否与获得的奖励相关联，一般转移的程度都是相同的。这些发现增加了我们目前对一般转移背后的激励动机机制的了解，表明它独立于结果的运动特征。
