Interindividual differences in Pavlovian influence on learning are consistent

Pavlovian influences impair instrumental learning. It is easier to learn to approach reward-predictive signals and avoid punishment-predictive cues than their contrary. Whether the interindividual variability in this Pavlovian influence is consistent across time has been examined by a number of rece...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Royal Society open science 2023-09, Vol.10 (9), p.230447-230447
Main Authors: Saeedpour, Sepehr, Hossein, Mostafa Minadari, Deroy, Ophelia, Bahrami, Bahador
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pavlovian influences impair instrumental learning. It is easier to learn to approach reward-predictive signals and avoid punishment-predictive cues than their contrary. Whether the interindividual variability in this Pavlovian influence is consistent across time has been examined by a number of recent studies and met with mixed results. Here we introduce an open-source, web-based instance of a well-established Go–NoGo paradigm for measuring Pavlovian influence. We closely replicated the previous laboratory-based results. Moreover, the interindividual differences in Pavlovian influence were consistent across a two-week time window at the level of (i) raw measures of learning (i.e. performance accuracy), (ii) linear, descriptive estimates of Pavlovian bias (test–retest reliability: 0.40), and (iii) parameters obtained from reinforcement learning model fitting and model selection (test–retest reliability: 0.25). Nonetheless, the correlations reported here are still lower than the standards (i.e. 0.7) employed in psychometrics and self-reported measures. Our results provide support for trusting Pavlovian bias as a relatively stable individual characteristic and for using its measure in the computational understanding of human mental health.
ISSN:2054-5703
2054-5703