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How does the attention system learn from aversive outcomes?

ABSTRACT: Learning about aversive outcomes plays a role in the guidance of attention. Classical conditioning generates a bias to predictors of aversive outcomes, whereas instrumental learning potentiates a negatively reinforced avoidance behavior, which can be difficult to dissociate in the case of attention to aversively conditioned stimuli. The present study examined the relative contribution from these two learning processes to the control of attention. Participants were first provided an opportunity to avoid an electric shock by generating a saccade in the direction opposite one of two stimuli. In contradiction to the practiced avoidance behavior, such training resulted in a bias to orient toward the shock-associated stimulus, indicative of a more dominant role of classical conditioning in the control of attention. The findings are in parallel with the influence of positive reinforcement on attention, suggesting that the attention system may be guided by motivational relevance rather than a particular emotional valence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

SUBMITTER: Kim H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7855131 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How does the attention system learn from aversive outcomes?

Kim Haena H Anderson Brian A BA

Emotion (Washington, D.C.) 20200727 4

Learning about aversive outcomes plays a role in the guidance of attention. Classical conditioning generates a bias to predictors of aversive outcomes, whereas instrumental learning potentiates a negatively reinforced avoidance behavior, which can be difficult to dissociate in the case of attention to aversively conditioned stimuli. The present study examined the relative contribution from these two learning processes to the control of attention. Participants were first provided an opportunity t ...[more]

PMID: 32718173

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Project description:Event-related potential (ERP) studies have provided evidence for an allocation of attentional resources to enhance perceptual processing of motivationally salient stimuli. Emotional modulation affects several consecutive components associated with stages of affective-cognitive processing, beginning as early as 100-200ms after stimulus onset. In agreement with the notion that the right parietotemporal region is critically involved during the perception of arousing affective stimuli, some ERP studies have reported asymmetric emotional ERP effects. However, it is difficult to separate emotional from non-emotional effects because differences in stimulus content unrelated to affective salience or task demands may also be associated with lateralized function or promote cognitive processing. Other concerns pertain to the operational definition and statistical independence of ERP component measures, their dependence on an EEG reference, and spatial smearing due to volume conduction, all of which impede the identification of distinct scalp activation patterns associated with affective processing. Building on prior research using a visual half-field paradigm with highly controlled emotional stimuli (pictures of cosmetic surgery patients showing disordered [negative] or healed [neutral] facial areas before or after treatment), 72-channel ERPs recorded from 152 individuals (ages 13-68years; 81 female) were transformed into reference-free current source density (CSD) waveforms and submitted to temporal principal components analysis (PCA) to identify their underlying neuronal generator patterns. Using both nonparametric randomization tests and repeated measures ANOVA, robust effects of emotional content were found over parietooccipital regions for CSD factors corresponding to N2 sink (212ms peak latency), P3 source (385ms) and a late centroparietal source (630ms), all indicative of greater positivity for negative than neutral stimuli. For the N2 sink, emotional effects were right-lateralized and modulated by hemifield, with larger amplitude and asymmetry for left hemifield (right hemisphere) presentations. For all three factors, more positive amplitudes at parietooccipital sites were associated with increased ratings of negative valence and greater arousal. Distributed inverse solutions of the CSD-PCA-based emotional effects implicated a sequence of maximal activations in right occipitotemporal cortex, bilateral posterior cingulate cortex, and bilateral inferior temporal cortex. These findings are consistent with hierarchical activations of the ventral visual pathway reflecting subsequent processing stages in response to motivationally salient stimuli.

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How does the attention system learn from aversive outcomes?

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How does the attention system learn from aversive outcomes?

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