Donders Institute for Brain, Radboud University, Cognition, and Behaviour, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6526 GD, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2024 Aug;24(4):720-739. doi: 10.3758/s13415-024-01191-y. Epub 2024 May 21.
"Pavlovian" or "motivational" biases describe the phenomenon that the valence of prospective outcomes modulates action invigoration: Reward prospect invigorates action, whereas punishment prospect suppresses it. The adaptive role of these biases in decision-making is still unclear. One idea is that they constitute a fast-and-frugal decision strategy in situations characterized by high arousal, e.g., in presence of a predator, which demand a quick response. In this pre-registered study (N = 35), we tested whether such a situation-induced via subliminally presented angry versus neutral faces-leads to increased reliance on Pavlovian biases. We measured trial-by-trial arousal by tracking pupil diameter while participants performed an orthogonalized Motivational Go/NoGo Task. Pavlovian biases were present in responses, reaction times, and even gaze, with lower gaze dispersion under aversive cues reflecting "freezing of gaze." The subliminally presented faces did not affect responses, reaction times, or pupil diameter, suggesting that the arousal manipulation was ineffective. However, pupil dilations reflected facets of bias suppression, specifically the physical (but not cognitive) effort needed to overcome aversive inhibition: Particularly strong and sustained dilations occurred when participants managed to perform Go responses to aversive cues. Conversely, no such dilations occurred when they managed to inhibit responses to Win cues. These results suggest that pupil diameter does not reflect response conflict per se nor the inhibition of prepotent responses, but specifically effortful action invigoration as needed to overcome aversive inhibition. We discuss our results in the context of the "value of work" theory of striatal dopamine.
“巴甫洛夫”或“动机”偏差描述了预期结果的效价调节行动激励的现象：奖励预期激发行动，而惩罚预期则抑制行动。这些偏差在决策中的适应性作用尚不清楚。一种观点认为，它们构成了一种快速而节俭的决策策略，适用于高唤醒状态的情况，例如，在存在捕食者的情况下，这需要快速反应。在这项预先注册的研究（N=35）中，我们测试了这种通过潜意识呈现的愤怒与中性面孔来诱导的情况是否会导致对巴甫洛夫偏差的依赖增加。我们通过跟踪瞳孔直径来测量逐次试验的唤醒程度，而参与者则执行正交化的动机 Go/NoGo 任务。在反应、反应时间甚至注视中都存在巴甫洛夫偏差，在厌恶线索下，注视分散度较低，反映了“注视冻结”。潜意识呈现的面孔不会影响反应、反应时间或瞳孔直径，这表明唤醒操纵无效。然而，瞳孔扩张反映了偏差抑制的各个方面，特别是克服厌恶抑制所需的物理（而不是认知）努力：当参与者设法对厌恶线索做出 Go 反应时，瞳孔会出现特别强烈和持续的扩张。相反，当他们设法抑制对 Win 线索的反应时，就不会出现这种扩张。这些结果表明，瞳孔直径本身不反映反应冲突，也不反映对优势反应的抑制，而是反映了克服厌恶抑制所需的费力的行动激励。我们在纹状体多巴胺的“工作价值”理论的背景下讨论了我们的结果。
