Mike Le Pelley

Impairments in action-outcome learning in schizophrenia

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 03-03-2018

DOI: 10.1038/S41398-018-0103-0

Abstract: Learning the causal relation between actions and their outcomes (AO learning) is critical for goal-directed behavior when actions are guided by desire for the outcome. This can be contrasted with habits that are acquired by reinforcement and primed by prevailing stimuli, in which causal learning plays no part. Recently, we demonstrated that goal-directed actions are impaired in schizophrenia however, whether this deficit exists alongside impairments in habit or reinforcement learning is unknown. The present study distinguished deficits in causal learning from reinforcement learning in schizophrenia. We tested people with schizophrenia (SZ, n = 25) and healthy adults (HA, n = 25) in a vending machine task. Participants learned two action–outcome contingencies (e.g., push left to get a chocolate M& M, push right to get a cracker), and they also learned one contingency was degraded by delivery of noncontingent outcomes (e.g., free M& Ms), as well as changes in value by outcome devaluation. Both groups learned the best action to obtain rewards however, SZ did not distinguish the more causal action when one AO contingency was degraded. Moreover, action selection in SZ was insensitive to changes in outcome value unless feedback was provided, and this was related to the deficit in AO learning. The failure to encode the causal relation between action and outcome in schizophrenia occurred without any apparent deficit in reinforcement learning. This implies that poor goal-directed behavior in schizophrenia cannot be explained by a more primary deficit in reward learning such as insensitivity to reward value or reward prediction errors.

Cognitive control and counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 04-02-2015

DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2014.994252

Disrupted attentional learning in high schizotypy: Evidence of aberrant salience

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 31-12-2015

DOI: 10.1111/BJOP.12175

Abstract: The relationship between learned variations in attention and schizotypy was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants low on a negative subscale of schizotypy exhibited an explicit bias in overt attention towards stimuli that were established as predictive of a trial outcome, relative to stimuli that were irrelevant. The same participants also showed a bias in learning about these stimuli when they presented in a novel context. Neither of these effects was observed in participants high in schizotypy. In Experiment 2, participants low on the negative subscale of schizotypy exhibited faster reaction times towards a target that was cued by a stimulus that had a history of predictive validity relative to a stimulus that had a history of irrelevance. Again, this effect was not present in participants high in schizotypy. These results imply a disruption in the normal allocation of attention to cues that have predictive significance in schizotypy.

Uncertainty and predictiveness determine attention to cues during human associative learning

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 11-2015

DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2015.1009919

Abstract: Prior research has suggested that attention is determined by exploiting what is known about the most valid predictors of outcomes and exploring those stimuli that are associated with the greatest degree of uncertainty about subsequent events. Previous studies of human contingency learning have revealed evidence for one or other of these processes, but differences in the designs and procedures of these studies make it difficult to pinpoint the crucial determinant of whether attentional exploitation or exploration will dominate. Here we present two studies in which we systematically manipulated both the predictiveness of cues and uncertainty regarding the outcomes with which they were associated. This allowed us to demonstrate, for the first time, evidence of both attentional exploration and exploitation within the same experiment. Moreover, while the effect of predictiveness persisted to influence the rate of novel learning about the same cues in a second stage, the effect of uncertainty did not. This suggests that attentional exploration is more sensitive to a change of context than is exploitation. The pattern of data is simulated with a hybrid attentional model.

Reward learning and statistical learning independently influence attentional priority of salient distractors in visual search.

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 10-01-2022

DOI: 10.3758/S13414-021-02426-7

Abstract: Existing research demonstrates different ways in which attentional prioritization of salient nontarget stimuli is shaped by prior experience: Reward learning renders signals of high-value outcomes more likely to capture attention than signals of low-value outcomes, whereas statistical learning can produce attentional suppression of the location in which salient distractor items are likely to appear. The current study combined manipulations of the value and location associated with salient distractors in visual search to investigate whether these different effects of selection history operate independently or interact to determine overall attentional prioritization of salient distractors. In Experiment 1, high-value and low-value distractors most frequently appeared in the same location in Experiment 2, high-value and low-value distractors typically appeared in distinct locations. In both experiments, effects of distractor value and location were additive, suggesting that attention-promoting effects of value and attention-suppressing effects of statistical location-learning independently modulate overall attentional priority. Our findings are consistent with a view that sees attention as mediated by a common priority map that receives and integrates separate signals relating to physical salience and value, with signal suppression based on statistical learning determined by physical salience, but not incentive salience.

Attentional economics links value-modulated attentional capture and decision-making

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 04-05-2022

DOI: 10.1038/S44159-022-00053-Z

Cannabis use, schizotypy, and negative priming

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 08-2015

DOI: 10.1016/J.PSYCHRES.2015.05.074

Abstract: The present study examined the effects of frequency of cannabis use, schizotypy, and age on cognitive control, as measured using a location-based negative priming task in a s le of 124 Australians aged 15-24 who had ever used cannabis. This study found that the schizotypy dimension of Impulsive Nonconformity had a significant effect on negative priming such that participants with higher scores on this dimension showed reduced negative priming. Also, higher levels of psychological distress were associated with greater negative priming. Finally, there was a significant age by cannabis use interaction indicating that younger, frequent users of cannabis may be more susceptible to its effects on cognitive control and perhaps at greater risk of developing a disorder on the psychosis dimension.

Inner speech is accompanied by a temporally-precise and content-specific corollary discharge

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 09-2019

DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROIMAGE.2019.04.038

Abstract: When we move our articulator organs to produce overt speech, the brain generates a corollary discharge that acts to suppress the neural and perceptual responses to our speech sounds. Recent research suggests that inner speech - the silent production of words in one's mind - is also accompanied by a corollary discharge. Here, we show that this corollary discharge contains information about the temporal and physical properties of inner speech. In two experiments, participants produced an inner phoneme at a precisely-defined moment in time. An audible phoneme was presented 300 ms before, concurrently with, or 300 ms after participants produced the inner phoneme. We found that producing the inner phoneme attenuated the N1 component of the event-related potential - an index of auditory cortex processing - but only when the inner and audible phonemes occurred concurrently and matched on content. If the audible phoneme was presented before or after the production of the inner phoneme, or if the inner phoneme did not match the content of the audible phoneme, there was no attenuation of the N1. These results suggest that inner speech is accompanied by a temporally-precise and content-specific corollary discharge. We conclude that these results support the notion of a functional equivalence between the neural processes that underlie the production of inner and overt speech, and may provide a platform for identifying inner speech abnormalities in disorders in which they have been putatively associated, such as schizophrenia.

Author response: Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech

Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

Date: 10-10-2017

DOI: 10.7554/ELIFE.28197.022

Prediction and Uncertainty in Associative Learning: Examining Controlled and Automatic Components of Learned Attentional Biases

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 08-2017

DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1188407

Abstract: It has been suggested that attention is guided by two factors that operate during associative learning: a predictiveness principle, by which attention is allocated to the best predictors of outcomes, and an uncertainty principle, by which attention is allocated to learn about the less known features of the environment. Recent studies have shown that predictiveness-driven attention can operate rapidly and in an automatic way to exploit known relationships. The corresponding characteristics of uncertainty-driven attention, on the other hand, remain unexplored. In two experiments we examined whether both predictiveness and uncertainty modulate attentional processing in an adaptation of the dot probe task. This task provides a measure of automatic orientation to cues during associative learning. The stimulus onset asynchrony of the probe display was manipulated in order to explore temporal characteristics of predictiveness- and uncertainty-driven attentional effects. Results showed that the predictive status of cues determined selective attention, with faster attentional capture to predictive than to non-predictive cues. In contrast, the level of uncertainty slowed down responses to the probe regardless of the predictive status of the cues. Both predictiveness- and uncertainty-driven attentional effects were very rapid (at 250 ms from cue onset) and were automatically activated.

Implicit learning of gaze-contingent events

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 24-09-2014

DOI: 10.3758/S13423-014-0720-4

Abstract: In a novel implicit learning task, participants responded to a target stimulus that could appear in one of three locations. Unknown to participants, the location in which the target appeared was probabilistically determined on the basis of the location of eye-gaze immediately prior to the appearance of the target. Participants' response times to the appearance of the target in a high-probability location were faster than when it appeared in a low-probability location, revealing that participants were able to learn these gaze-contingent events. Furthermore, there was no difference in the cuing score between those participants classified as aware or unaware of the contingencies on a subsequent forced-choice recognition task. These data suggest the task involves implicit learning of instrumental (action-outcome) contingencies, which has potential implications for our understanding of gaze-contingent processes in social interaction.

The effect of predictive history on the learning of sub-sequence contingencies

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 2010

DOI: 10.1080/17470210902831767

Abstract: Two experiments demonstrated that the prior predictive history of a cue governs the extent to which that cue engages in sequence learning. Using a serial reaction time task, we manipulated the predictiveness of the stimulus locations (cues) with respect to the location of the stimulus on the next trial (outcome), such that half of the cues were good predictors of their outcomes, whilst the other half were poorer predictors. Following this, all cues were then paired with novel outcomes. Learning about those cues that were previously established as good predictors proceeded more rapidly than learning for those cues previously established as poor predictors. When the simple recurrent network is modified to include a variable associability parameter, the effects are easily modelled.

Blocking of Human Causal Learning Involves Learned Changes in Stimulus Processing

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 10-2007

DOI: 10.1080/17470210701515645

Abstract: Several theories of associative learning propose that blocking reflects changes in the processing devoted to learning about cues. The results of the only direct test of this suggestion in human learning (Kruschke & Blair, 2000) could equally well be explained in terms of, among others, interference in learning or memory. The present study tested this suggestion in a situation in which processing-change and interference accounts predict opposing results. Results support the idea that blocking in human learning can reflect a change in processing of the cues involved.

Physiological and subjective validation of a novel stress procedure: The Simple Singing Stress Procedure.

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 17-11-2021

DOI: 10.3758/S13428-020-01505-1

The bridge between neuroscience and cognition must be tethered at both ends

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 03-01-2015

DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2014.993464

When goals conflict with values: Counterproductive attentional and oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 02-2015

DOI: 10.1037/XGE0000037

Abstract: Attention provides the gateway to cognition, by selecting certain stimuli for further analysis. Recent research demonstrates that whether a stimulus captures attention is not determined solely by its physical properties, but is malleable, being influenced by our previous experience of rewards obtained by attending to that stimulus. Here we show that this influence of reward learning on attention extends to task-irrelevant stimuli. In a visual search task, certain stimuli signaled the magnitude of available reward, but reward delivery was not contingent on responding to those stimuli. Indeed, any attentional capture by these critical distractor stimuli led to a reduction in the reward obtained. Nevertheless, distractors signaling large reward produced greater attentional and oculomotor capture than those signaling small reward. This counterproductive capture by task-irrelevant stimuli is important because it demonstrates how external reward structures can produce patterns of behavior that conflict with task demands, and similar processes may underlie problematic behavior directed toward real-world rewards.

Perceptions of randomness in binary sequences: Normative, heuristic, or both?

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 03-2018

DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2017.11.002

Abstract: When people consider a series of random binary events, such as tossing an unbiased coin and recording the sequence of heads (H) and tails (T), they tend to erroneously rate sequences with less internal structure or order (such as HTTHT) as more probable than sequences containing more structure or order (such as HHHHH). This is traditionally explained as a local representativeness effect: Participants assume that the properties of long sequences of random outcomes-such as an equal proportion of heads and tails, and little internal structure-should also apply to short sequences. However, recent theoretical work has noted that the probability of a particular sequence of say, heads and tails of length n, occurring within a larger (>n) sequence of coin flips actually differs by sequence, so P(HHHHH) <P(HTTHT). In this alternative account, people apply rational norms based on limited experience. We test these accounts. Participants in Experiment 1 rated the likelihood of occurrence for all possible strings of 4, 5, and 6 observations in a sequence of coin flips. Judgments were better explained by representativeness in alternation rate, relative proportion of heads and tails, and sequence complexity, than by objective probabilities. Experiments 2 and 3 gave similar results using incentivized binary choice procedures. Overall the evidence suggests that participants are not sensitive to variation in objective probabilities of a sub-sequence occurring they appear to use heuristics based on several distinct forms of representativeness.

‘Habit-like’ attentional prioritisation of reward-related stimuli

Publisher: Center for Open Science

Date: 17-08-2021

DOI: 10.31234/OSF.IO/MWJHK

Age moderates the association between frequent cannabis use and negative schizotypy over time

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2018

DOI: 10.1016/J.ADDBEH.2018.07.016

Abstract: The current study examined whether age and frequent cannabis use interact to influence the trajectories of positive and negative schizotypy over time. Participants were 155 cannabis users, aged 15-24 years old, assessed over a 12-month period at 6-monthly intervals. The analyses examined the influence of age, frequent use, and time on positive and negative schizotypy. The current study found that among frequent cannabis users, younger age was associated with increased negative schizotypy over time, while among occasional cannabis users, younger age was associated with decreasing negative schizotypy over time. The current findings have implications for understanding how cannabis use may influence psychosis risk differently depending on age and frequency of use, as well as bring together past mixed findings on the relationship between negative schizotypy and cannabis use.

Reward-Related Attentional Capture Moderates the Association between Fear-Driven Motives and Heavy Drinking

Publisher: S. Karger AG

Date: 2021

DOI: 10.1159/000513470

Abstract: b i Background: /i /b To date, there has been little investigation on how motivational and cognitive mechanisms interact to influence problematic drinking behaviours. Towards this aim, the current study examined whether reward-related attentional capture is associated with reward, fear (relief), and habit drinking motives, and further, whether it interacts with these motives in relation to problematic drinking patterns. b i Methods: /i /b Ninety participants (mean age = 34.8 years, SD = 9.1, 54% male) who reported having consumed alcohol in the past month completed an online visual search task that measured reward-related attentional capture as well as the Habit Reward Fear Scale, a measure of drinking motives. Participants also completed measures of psychological distress, impulsivity, compulsive drinking, and consumption items of Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Regression analyses examined the associations between motives for alcohol consumption and reward-related attentional capture, as well as the associations between reward-related attentional capture, motives, and their interaction, with alcohol consumption and problems. b i Results: /i /b Greater reward-related attentional capture was associated with greater reward motives. Further, reward-related attentional capture also interacted with fear motives in relation to alcohol consumption. Follow-up analyses showed that this interaction was driven by greater fear motives being associated with heavier drinking among those with lower reward-related attentional capture (i.e., “goal-trackers”). b i Conclusion: /i /b These findings have implications for understanding how cognition may interact with motives in association with problematic drinking. Specifically, the findings highlight different potential pathways to problematic drinking according to an in idual’s cognitive-motivational profile and may inform tailored interventions to target profile-specific mechanisms. Finally, these findings offer support for contemporary models of addiction that view excessive goal-directed behaviour under negative affect as a critical contributor to addictive behaviours.

Still connecting the dots: An investigation into infants' attentional bias to threat using an eye-tracking task

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 30-11-2022

DOI: 10.1111/INFA.12444

Abstract: An attentional bias toward threat has been theorized to be a normative aspect of infants' threat and safety learning, and an indicator of risk for internalizing psychopathology in older populations. To date, only four studies have examined this bias using the dot‐probe task in infancy and the findings are mixed. We extended the literature by examining patterns of attention to threat in a culturally and linguistically erse s le of infants aged 5–11 months old ( N = 151) using all measures previously employed in the infant dot‐probe literature. Given that an attentional bias toward threat is associated with higher risk of developing anxiety disorders later in life, we also examined how negative affect—an early correlate of later anxiety disorders—is related to attentional bias toward threat in infancy. This study was the first to use a consistent measure of negative affect across the whole s le. An eye‐tracking dot‐probe task was used to examine attentional bias toward threat (i.e., angry faces) relative to positive (i.e., happy faces) stimuli. Results showed that an attention bias to threat was not characteristic of infants at this age, and negative affect did not moderate the putative relationship between attention and emotional faces (angry, happy). These findings therefore suggest that attention biases to socio‐emotional threat may not have emerged by 11 months old.

Learned value and predictiveness affect gaze but not figure assignment

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 03-11-2020

DOI: 10.3758/S13414-020-02125-9

The blocking effect in associative learning involves learned biases in rapid attentional capture

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 2018

DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1262435

Abstract: Blocking refers to the finding that less is learned about the relationship between a stimulus and an outcome if pairings are conducted in the presence of a second stimulus that has previously been established as a reliable predictor of that outcome. Attentional models of associative learning suggest that blocking reflects a reduction in the attention paid to the blocked cue. We tested this idea in three experiments in which participants were trained in an associative learning task using a blocking procedure. Attention to stimuli was measured 250 ms after onset using an adapted version of the dot probe task. This task was presented at the beginning of each learning trial (Experiments 1 and 2) or in independent trials (Experiment 3). Results show evidence of reduced attention to blocked stimuli (i.e. “attentional blocking”). In addition, this attentional bias correlated with the magnitude of blocking in associative learning, as measured by predictive-value judgments. Moreover, Experiments 2 and 3 found evidence of an influence of learning about predictiveness on memory for episodes involving stimuli. These findings are consistent with a central role of learned attentional biases in producing the blocking effect, and in the encoding of new memories.

Overt attentional capture by reward-related stimuli overcomes inhibitory suppression.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 05-2020

DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000728

Goal‐directed EEG activity evoked by discriminative stimuli in reinforcement learning

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 06-08-2014

DOI: 10.1111/PSYP.12302

Abstract: In reinforcement learning (RL), discriminative stimuli (S) allow agents to anticipate the value of a future outcome, and the response that will produce that outcome. We examined this processing by recording EEG locked to S during RL. Incentive value of outcomes and predictive value of S were manipulated, allowing us to discriminate between outcome-related and response-related activity. S predicting the correct response differed from nonpredictive S in the P2. S paired with high-value outcomes differed from those paired with low-value outcomes in a frontocentral positivity and in the P3b. A slow negativity then distinguished between predictive and nonpredictive S. These results suggest that, first, attention prioritizes detection of informative S. Activation of mental representations of these informative S then retrieves representations of outcomes, which in turn retrieve representations of responses that previously produced those outcomes.

Learned predictiveness influences rapid attentional capture: Evidence from the dot probe task.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2013

DOI: 10.1037/A0033700

Abstract: Attentional theories of associative learning and categorization propose that learning about the predictiveness of a stimulus influences the amount of attention that is paid to that stimulus. Three experiments tested this idea by looking at the extent to which stimuli that had previously been experienced as predictive or nonpredictive in a categorization task were able to capture attention in a dot probe task. Consistent with certain attentional theories of learning, responses to the dot probe were faster when it appeared in a location cued by a predictive stimulus compared to a location cued by a nonpredictive stimulus. This result was obtained only with short (250-ms or 350-ms) but not long (1,000-ms) delays between onset of the stimuli and the dot probe, suggesting that the observed spatial cuing effect reflects the operation of a relatively rapid, automatic process. These findings are consistent with the approach to the relationship between attention and learning taken by the class of models exemplified by Mackintosh's (1975) theory.

Attention to irrelevant cues is related to positive symptoms in schizophrenia

Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)

Date: 20-01-2013

DOI: 10.1093/SCHBUL/SBR192

Outcome predictability biases cued search.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 08-2018

DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000529

Abstract: Within the domain of associative learning, there is substantial evidence that people (and other animals) select among environmental cues on the basis of their reinforcement history. Specifically, people preferentially attend to, and learn about, cueing stimuli that have previously predicted events of consequence (a predictiveness bias). By contrast, relatively little is known about whether people prioritize some (to-be-predicted) outcome events over others on the basis of their past experience with those outcomes (a predictability bias). The present experiments assessed whether the prior predictability of a stimulus results in a learning bias in a contingency learning task, as such effects are not anticipated by formal models of associative learning. Previously unpredictable stimuli were less readily learned about than previously predictable stimuli. This pattern is unlikely to reflect the use of strategic search processes or blocking of learning by the context. Instead we argue that our findings are most consistent with the operation of a biased learning mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record

The influence of blocking on overt attention and associability in human learning.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2011

DOI: 10.1037/A0019526

Abstract: Previous studies have demonstrated a retardation in the rate of novel learning about previously blocked cues as compared to appropriate control cues. We report an experiment investigating whether this retardation in novel learning about a blocked cue is accompanied by a reduction in attention to this cue, as anticipated by attentional theories of associative learning. Consistent with these theories, eye gaze measures revealed a reduction in overt attention to the blocked cue both during the compound training phase of the blocking procedure, and also during novel learning with respect to new outcomes. Moreover, the extent of the bias in overt attention away from blocked cues was positively correlated with the subsequent reduction in rate of novel learning about these cues.

Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech

Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

Date: 04-12-2017

DOI: 10.7554/ELIFE.28197

Abstract: Efference copies refer to internal duplicates of movement-producing neural signals. Their primary function is to predict, and often suppress, the sensory consequences of willed movements. Efference copies have been almost exclusively investigated in the context of overt movements. The current electrophysiological study employed a novel design to show that inner speech – the silent production of words in one’s mind – is also associated with an efference copy. Participants produced an inner phoneme at a precisely specified time, at which an audible phoneme was concurrently presented. The production of the inner phoneme resulted in electrophysiological suppression, but only if the content of the inner phoneme matched the content of the audible phoneme. These results demonstrate that inner speech – a purely mental action – is associated with an efference copy with detailed auditory properties. These findings suggest that inner speech may ultimately reflect a special type of overt speech.

Reward-related attentional capture and cognitive inflexibility interact to determine greater severity of compulsivity-related problems

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.JBTEP.2020.101580

Miss it and miss out: Counterproductive nonspatial attentional capture by task-irrelevant, value-related stimuli

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 05-06-2017

DOI: 10.3758/S13414-017-1346-1

Abstract: Recent studies of visual search suggest that learning about valued outcomes (rewards and punishments) influences the likelihood that distractors will capture spatial attention and slow search for a target, even when those value-related distractors have never themselves been the targets of search. In the present study, we demonstrated a related effect in the context of temporal, rather than spatial, selection. Participants were presented with a temporal stream of pictures in a fixed central location and had to identify the orientation of a rotated target picture. Response accuracy was reduced if the rotated target was preceded by a "valued" distractor picture that signaled that a correct response to the target would be rewarded (and an incorrect response punished), relative to a distractor picture that did not signal reward or punishment. This effect of signal value on response accuracy was short-lived, being most prominent with a short lag between distractor and target. Impairment caused by a valued distractor was observed if participants were explicitly instructed regarding its relation to reward unishment (Exps. 1, 3, and 4), or if they could learn this relationship only via trial-by-trial experience (Exp. 2). These findings show that the influence of signal value on attentional capture extends to temporal selection, and also demonstrate that value-related distractors can interfere with the conscious perception of subsequent target information.

Winners and losers: Reward and punishment produce biases in temporal selection.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 05-2019

DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000612

Abstract: Studies of visual search demonstrate that the 'learned value' of stimuli (the extent to which they signal valued events, such as rewards and punishments) influences whether they will be prioritized by spatial attention. Recent work suggests that learned value also modulates attentional prioritization even when all stimuli are presented in the same location, suggesting an influence on temporal selection wherein value-related stimuli become more capable of disrupting central mechanisms of perceptual awareness. However, it remains unclear whether temporal selection is influenced specifically by learning about the relationship of stimuli with reward, or with punishment, or both. This question motivated the current experiments. Participants saw a stream of pictures in a central location, and had to identify the orientation of a rotated target picture. In Experiment 1, response accuracy was reduced if the target was preceded by a 'valued' distractor picture that signaled that a correct response to the target would be rewarded, relative to a distractor picture that did not signal reward. In Experiment 2, accuracy was reduced if the valued distractor picture signaled that an incorrect response would be punished, relative to a distractor that did not signal punishment. Experiment 3 replicated these findings, and demonstrated that the influence of rewards unishments persisted into an extinction phase in which valued distractors were entirely task-irrelevant. These findings suggest that it is the motivational significance of the outcome, rather than its valence, that is the crucial determinant of the influence of learned value on temporal selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Measuring habit formation through goal-directed response switching.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 08-2020

DOI: 10.1037/XGE0000722

Abstract: Reward-learning theory views habits as stimulus-response links formed through extended reward training. Accordingly, animal research has shown that actions that are initially goal-directed can become habitual after operant overtraining. However, a similar demonstration is absent in human research, which poses a serious problem for translational models of behavior. We propose that response-time (RT) switch cost after operant training can be used as a new, reliable marker for the operation of the habit system in humans. Using a new method, we show that RT switch cost demonstrates the properties that would be expected of a habitual behavior: (a) it increases with overtraining, (b) it increases when rewards are larger, and (c) it increases when time pressure is added to the task, thereby hindering the competing goal-directed system. These results offer a promising new pathway for studying the operation of the habit system in humans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Persistence of value-modulated attentional capture is associated with risky alcohol use.

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 12-2019

DOI: 10.1016/J.ABREP.2019.100195

Nonreactive testing: Evaluating the effect of withholding feedback in predictive learning.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2022

DOI: 10.1037/XAN0000311

The role of uncertainty in attentional and choice exploration

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 19-08-2019

DOI: 10.3758/S13423-019-01653-2

Abstract: The exploitation-exploration (EE) trade-off describes how, when making a decision, an organism must often choose between a safe alternative with a known pay-off, and one or more riskier alternatives with uncertain pay-offs. Recently, the concept of the EE trade-off has been extended to the examination of how organisms distribute limited attentional resources between several stimuli. This work suggests that when the rules governing the environment are certain, participants learn to "exploit" by attending preferentially to cues that provide the most information about upcoming events. However, when the rules are uncertain, people "explore" by increasing their attention to all cues that may provide information to help in predicting upcoming events. In the current study, we examine how uncertainty affects the EE trade-off in attention using a contextual two-armed bandit task, where participants explore with both their attention and their choice behavior. We find evidence for an influence of uncertainty on the EE trade-off in both choice and attention. These findings provide support for the idea of an EE trade-off in attention, and that uncertainty is a primary motivator for exploration in both choice and attentional allocation.

Value-Modulated Attentional Capture in Reward and Punishment Contexts, Attentional Control, and their Relationship with Psychopathology

Publisher: Center for Open Science

Date: 17-04-2023

DOI: 10.31234/OSF.IO/24EDR

Attentional changes in blocking are not a consequence of lateral inhibition

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 02-2009

DOI: 10.3758/LB.37.1.27

Disrupted auditory N1, theta power and coherence suppression to willed speech in people with schizophrenia

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 2023

DOI: 10.1016/J.NICL.2022.103290

Syntactic transfer in artificial grammar learning

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 02-2010

DOI: 10.3758/PBR.17.1.122

The algorithmic neuroanatomy of action-outcome learning

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Date: 14-05-2017

DOI: 10.1101/137851

Abstract: Although it is well known that animals can encode the consequences of their actions and can use this information to control action selection and evaluation, it is not known what learning rules control action-outcome (AO) learning. Here we trained participants to encode specific AO associations whilst undergoing functional imaging (fMRI) and used computational modelling to evaluate competing models. This analysis revealed that a Kalman filter, which learned the unique causal effect of each action, best characterized AO learning and found the medial prefrontal cortex differentiated the unique effect of actions from background effects. We subsequently extended these findings to show that mPFC participated in a circuit with parietal cortex and caudate nucleus to segregate distinct contributions to AO learning. The results extend our understanding of goal-directed learning and demonstrate that sensitivity to the causal relationship between actions and outcomes guides goal-directed learning rather than contiguous state-action relations.

Frequent cannabis use is associated with reduced negative priming among females

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2016

DOI: 10.1037/PHA0000085

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between cannabis use, sex, and attentional inhibition in a s le of 325 young Australians (194 women and 131 men) aged 14 to 24 years. Participants completed an online assessment, which included self-report measures of alcohol and other drug use, psychological distress, schizotypy, and location-based negative priming. Participants who had never used cannabis (n = 163) were compared with occasional (n = 118) and frequent (n = 44) cannabis users, with frequent use being defined as having used cannabis at least weekly in the past 6 months. There was a significant interaction between sex and cannabis use, with follow-up analyses indicating that frequent cannabis use was associated with reduced negative priming among females only. This study highlights the role of sex in influencing how cannabis use interacts with cognition and suggests that females who use cannabis frequently may be more likely than males to exhibit deficits in attentional inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record

A meta-analysis of the relationship between eating restraint, impaired cognitive control and cognitive bias to food in non-clinical samples.

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 11-2021

DOI: 10.1016/J.CPR.2021.102082

Eating restraint is associated with reduced attentional capture by signals of valuable food reward

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 04-2021

DOI: 10.1016/J.APPET.2020.105050

Attentional capture by signals of reward persists following outcome devaluation.

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Date: 07-2022

DOI: 10.1101/LM.053569.122

Abstract: Attention, the mechanism that prioritizes stimuli in the environment for further processing, plays an important role in behavioral choice. In the present study, we investigated the automatic orienting of attention to cues that signal reward. Such attentional capture occurs despite negative consequences, and we investigated whether this counterproductive and reflexive behavior would persist following outcome devaluation. Thirsty participants completed a visual search task in which the color of a distractor stimulus in the search display signaled whether participants would earn water or potato chips for making a rapid eye movement to a diamond target, but looking at the colored distractor was punished by omission of the signaled reward. Nevertheless, participants looked at the water-signaling distractor more frequently than the chip-signaling distractor. Half the participants then drank water ad libitum before continuing with the visual search task. Although the water was now significantly less desirable for half of the participants, there was no difference between groups in the tendency for the water-signaling distractor to capture attention. These findings suggest that once established, counterproductive attentional bias to signals of reward persists even when those outcomes are no longer valuable. This suggests a “habit-like” attentional mechanism that prioritizes reward stimuli in the environment for further action, regardless of whether those stimuli are aligned with current goals or currently desired.

How do competing influences of selection history interact? A commentary on Luck et al. (2021)

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 28-09-2021

DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2021.1912234

Reduced attentional capture by reward following an acute dose of alcohol.

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 24-08-2020

DOI: 10.1007/S00213-020-05641-6

Prioritizing pleasure and pain: attentional capture by reward-related and punishment-related stimuli

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 04-2019

DOI: 10.1016/J.COBEHA.2018.12.002

Delayed disengagement of attention from distractors signalling reward.

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 02-2020

DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2019.104125

Abstract: Attention refers to the set of cognitive mechanisms that facilitate the prioritization of incoming sensory information. Existing research suggests that motivationally salient stimuli, such as those associated with reward, are prioritized by the attention system and that this prioritization occurs independently of an observer's goals. Specifically, studies of visual search have shown that stimuli signalling the availability of monetary reward are more likely to capture eye movements, even when participants are motivated to ignore such stimuli. In the current study we ask whether reward magnitude influences only the likelihood that stimuli will capture spatial attention, or whether reward also influences the ease with which people can disengage attention from a location when they are motivated to move their attention elsewhere. Three experiments examined the time taken to disengage from a centrally presented distractor that signalled the availability of high or low reward. We found that participants took longer to move their eyes away from a high-reward distractor, even though this came at financial cost (Experiment 1), that participants were unable to suppress a high-reward distractor consistently presented at the central location (Experiment 2), that slower responding was not due to behavioural freezing in the presence of a signal of high reward (Experiment 3), and that slower responding persisted even when rewards were no longer available (Experiment 4). These results indicate that reward modulates attentional disengagement: signals of high reward hold attention for longer, even when this is counterproductive for performance of ongoing tasks. Our findings further highlight the role of reward in the conflict between automatic and goal-directed attentional processing.

Reward-related attentional capture is associated with severity of addictive and obsessive–compulsive behaviors.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 08-2019

DOI: 10.1037/ADB0000484

Learned predictiveness effects in humans: A function of learning, performance, or both?

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2009

DOI: 10.1037/A0014315

Abstract: Many previous studies of animal and human learning indicate a processing advantage for cues previously experienced as good predictors of outcomes over those experienced as poorer predictors. Four studies of human associative learning investigated whether learned predictiveness acts at the level of learning (modulating the rate at which cue-outcome associations form), performance (modulating the strength of behavioral responses), or both. In Experiments 1-3, it was found that retrospectively altering the learned predictiveness of cues influenced responding to those cues, demonstrating that learned predictiveness influences performance. Experiment 4 indicates that learned predictiveness also influences learning by demonstrating that the learned predictiveness of a cue affects the acquisition of an association between a novel cue and the outcome with which it is paired.

Attention and associative learning in humans: An integrative review.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 10-2016

DOI: 10.1037/BUL0000064

Abstract: This article presents a comprehensive survey of research concerning interactions between associative learning and attention in humans. Four main findings are described. First, attention is biased toward stimuli that predict their consequences reliably (

Capture and Control: Working Memory Modulates Attentional Capture by Reward-Related Stimuli.

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 03-07-2019

DOI: 10.1177/0956797619855964

Abstract: Physically salient but task-irrelevant distractors can capture attention in visual search, but resource-dependent, executive-control processes can help reduce this distraction. However, it is not only physically salient stimuli that grab our attention: Recent research has shown that reward history also influences the likelihood that stimuli will capture attention. Here, we investigated whether resource-dependent control processes modulate the effect of reward on attentional capture, much as for the effect of physical salience. To this end, we used eye tracking with a rewarded visual search task and compared performance under conditions of high and low working memory load. In two experiments, we demonstrated that oculomotor capture by high-reward distractor stimuli is enhanced under high memory load. These results highlight the role of executive-control processes in modulating distraction by reward-related stimuli. Our findings have implications for understanding the neurocognitive processes involved in real-life conditions in which reward-related stimuli may influence behavior, such as addiction.

Learned predictiveness acquired through experience prevails over the influence of conflicting verbal instructions in rapid selective attention

Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Date: 14-09-2018

DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0200051

Delusions and prediction error: re-examining the behavioural evidence for disrupted error signalling in delusion formation

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 04-04-2014

DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2014.897601

Abstract: There is now significant evidence that prediction error signalling is mediated by dopamine in the midbrain, and that dopamine dysfunction is implicated in people experiencing psychotic symptoms, including delusions. There has also been significant theorizing and experimentation concerning the remaining link in this triad, namely that deviant prediction error signalling produces or maintains psychotic symptoms. The research supporting the link between prediction error signalling and delusional symptoms was reviewed. Numerous studies indirectly support this link, but only one set of studies claim to directly test this hypothesis by combining three crucial elements: a patient s le, a manipulation of prediction error and neuroimaging. This particular set of studies were examined in detail. Important methodological limitations in these studies were observed, and a reinterpretation of their data was offered. Methodological inconsistencies significantly weaken the claims made by these studies, but their data are consistent with current theorizing and they are instructive for future lines of inquiry in this field.

Relative salience versus relative validity: Cue salience influences blocking in human associative learning.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2014

DOI: 10.1037/XAN0000006

Abstract: Two studies of human contingency learning investigated the influence of stimulus salience on the cue competition effect of blocking. These studies demonstrated that blocking (defined as a difference in responding to blocked and control cues) was greater for target cues that had high "semantic salience" than those of lower salience. Moreover participants showed weaker responding to high salience blocked cues than low salience blocked cues, but a corresponding difference was not observed for control cues. These findings suggest that the influence of relative salience on associative learning depends on the relative validity of the cues in question. Use of eye tracking in Experiment 2 demonstrated that participants' overt attention to cues was also influenced by both relative salience and relative validity. We describe three associative learning models, based on the attentional theory proposed by Mackintosh (1975), that are able to account for our key findings.

Associative Learning and Derived Attention in Humans

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 24-06-2016

DOI: 10.1002/9781118650813.CH6

Attentional capture by Pavlovian reward-signalling distractors in visual search persists when rewards are removed.

Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Date: 12-12-2019

DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0226284

The Neural Bases of Action-Outcome Learning in Humans

Publisher: Society for Neuroscience

Date: 16-03-2022

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1079-21.2022

Abstract: From an associative perspective the acquisition of new goal-directed actions requires the encoding of specific action-outcome (AO) associations and, therefore, sensitivity to the validity of an action as a predictor of a specific outcome relative to other events. Although competitive architectures have been proposed within associative learning theory to achieve this kind of identity-based selection, whether and how these architectures are implemented by the brain is still a matter of conjecture. To investigate this issue, we trained human participants to encode various AO associations while undergoing functional neuroimaging (fMRI). We then degraded one AO contingency by increasing the probability of the outcome in the absence of its associated action while keeping other AO contingencies intact. We found that this treatment selectively reduced performance of the degraded action. Furthermore, when a signal predicted the unpaired outcome, performance of the action was restored, suggesting that the degradation effect reflects competition between the action and the context for prediction of the specific outcome. We used a Kalman filter to model the contribution of different causal variables to AO learning and found that activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) tracked changes in the association of the action and context, respectively, with regard to the specific outcome. Furthermore, we found the mPFC participated in a network with the striatum and posterior parietal cortex to segregate the influence of the various competing predictors to establish specific AO associations. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans and other animals learn the consequences of their actions, allowing them to control their environment in a goal-directed manner. Nevertheless, it is unknown how we parse environmental causes from the effects of our own actions to establish these specific action-outcome (AO) relationships. Here, we show that the brain learns the causal structure of the environment by segregating the unique influence of actions from other causes in the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices and, through a network of structures, including the caudate nucleus and posterior parietal cortex, establishes the distinct causal relationships from which specific AO associations are formed.

New Directions in Human Associative Learning

Publisher: Psychology Press

Date: 15-01-2005

DOI: 10.4324/9781410612113

The onset of uncertainty facilitates the learning of new associations by increasing attention to cues

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 2018

DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1363257

Abstract: Past research in animals has suggested that attention is distributed to exploit known relationships between stimuli and explore stimuli whose consequences are uncertain. While there is strong support for exploitative attention and its effects on learning in humans, the evidence for exploratory attention is less well developed. Two experiments examined whether preferential allocation of attention (as measured by eye-gaze) to cues associated with uncertainty leads to more rapid learning of new associations involving these cues in the future. In each experiment, participants first learned about compounds containing one predictive cue and one nonpredictive cue. The level of uncertainty during this first stage of training was also manipulated: cue-outcome relationships were either deterministic (certain) or probabilistic (uncertain). In a second stage, new cue-outcome relationships were trained and the uncertainty of these relationships could be resolved by learning about the previously nonpredictive cues. As a result of the manipulation of uncertainty in the first stage, some participants experienced a sudden onset of uncertainty at the start of this second stage, while others experienced a stable level of uncertainty throughout the experiment. Experiment 1 showed that the former learned novel cue-outcome associations faster than participants for whom uncertainty was constant. Furthermore, participants experiencing unexpected uncertainty showed a greater increase in attention to cues in Stage 2. Extending the training stage in Experiment 2 resulted in a larger difference in rate of learning between conditions in stage 2. We argue that this represents evidence for an effect of exploratory attention on rate of learning in humans.

Cross‐modal symbolic processing can elicit either an N2 or a protracted N2/N400 response

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 23-03-2016

DOI: 10.1111/PSYP.12649

Abstract: A cross-modal symbolic paradigm was used to elicit EEG activity related to semantic incongruence. Twenty-five undergraduate students viewed pairings of visual lexical cues (e.g., DOG) with congruent (50% of trials) or incongruent (50%) auditory nonlexical stimuli (animal vocalizations e.g., sound of a dog woofing or a cat meowing). In one condition, many different pairs of congruent/incongruent stimuli were shown, whereas in a second condition only two pairs of stimuli were repeatedly shown. A typical N400-like pattern of incongruence-related activity (including activity in the N2 time window) was evident in the condition using many stimuli, whereas the incongruence-related activity in the two-stimuli condition was confined to differential N2-like activity. A supplementary analysis excluded stimulus characteristics as the source of this differential activity between conditions. We found that a single in idual performing a fixed task can demonstrate either a protracted N400-like pattern of activity or a more temporally focused N2-like pattern of activity in response to the same stimulus, which suggests that the N2 may be a precursor to the protracted N400 response.

Superstition predicts perception of illusory control

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 24-08-2018

DOI: 10.1111/BJOP.12344

Abstract: Superstitions are common, yet we have little understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that bring them about. This study used a laboratory-based analogue for superstitious beliefs that involved people monitoring the relationship between undertaking an action (pressing a button) and an outcome occurring (a light illuminating). The task was arranged such that there was no objective contingency between pressing the button and the light illuminating - the light was just as likely to illuminate whether the button was pressed or not. Nevertheless, most people rated the causal relationship between the button press and the light illuminating to be moderately positive, demonstrating an illusion of causality. This study found that the magnitude of this illusion was predicted by people's level of endorsement of common superstitious beliefs (measured using a novel Superstitious Beliefs Questionnaire), but was not associated with mood variables or their self-rated locus of control. This observation is consistent with a more general in idual difference or bias to overweight conjunctive events over disjunctive events during causal reasoning in those with a propensity for superstitious beliefs.

Stereotype formation: Biased by association.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2010

DOI: 10.1037/A0018210

Abstract: We propose that biases in attitude and stereotype formation might arise as a result of learned differences in the extent to which social groups have previously been predictive of behavioral or physical properties. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that differences in the experienced predictiveness of groups with respect to evaluatively neutral information influence the extent to which participants later form attitudes and stereotypes about those groups. In contrast, Experiment 3 shows no influence of predictiveness when using a procedure designed to emphasize the use of higher level reasoning processes, a finding consistent with the idea that the root of the predictiveness bias is not in reasoning. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrate that the predictiveness bias in formation of group beliefs does not depend on participants making global evaluations of groups. These results are discussed in relation to the associative mechanisms proposed by Mackintosh (1975) to explain similar phenomena in animal conditioning and associative learning.

Compulsivity is measurable across distinct psychiatric symptom domains and is associated with familial risk and reward-related attentional capture

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Date: 24-10-2020

DOI: 10.1017/S1092852919001330

Abstract: Compulsivity can be seen across various mental health conditions and refers to a tendency toward repetitive habitual acts that are persistent and functionally impairing. Compulsivity involves dysfunctional reward-related circuitry and is thought to be significantly heritable. Despite this, its measurement from a transdiagnostic perspective has received only scant research attention. Here we examine both the psychometric properties of a recently developed compulsivity scale, as well as its relationship with compulsive symptoms, familial risk, and reward-related attentional capture. Two-hundred and sixty in iduals participated in the study (mean age = 36.0 [SD = 10.8] years 60.0% male) and completed the Cambridge-Chicago Compulsivity Trait Scale (CHI-T), along with measures of psychiatric symptoms and family history thereof. Participants also completed a task designed to measure reward-related attentional capture ( n = 177). CHI-T total scores had a normal distribution and acceptable Cronbach’s alpha (0.84). CHI-T total scores correlated significantly and positively (all p 0.05, Bonferroni corrected) with Problematic Usage of the Internet, disordered gambling, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, alcohol misuse, and disordered eating. The scale was correlated significantly with history of addiction and obsessive-compulsive related disorders in first-degree relatives of participants and greater reward-related attentional capture. These findings suggest that the CHI-T is suitable for use in online studies and constitutes a transdiagnostic marker for a range of compulsive symptoms, their familial loading, and related cognitive markers. Future work should more extensively investigate the scale in normative and clinical cohorts, and the role of value-modulated attentional capture across compulsive disorders.

Overt attention and predictiveness in human contingency learning.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 2011

DOI: 10.1037/A0021384

Abstract: Two experiments used eye-tracking procedures to investigate the relationship between attention and associative learning in human participants. These experiments found greater overt attention to cues experienced as predictive of the outcomes with which they were paired, than to cues experienced as nonpredictive. Moreover, this attentional bias persisted into a second training phase when all cues were equally predictive of the outcomes with which they were paired, and it was accompanied by a related bias in the rate of learning about these cues. These findings are consistent with the attentional model of associative learning proposed by Mackintosh (1975), but not with that proposed by Pearce and Hall (1980).

Learning to like triangles: A longitudinal investigation of evaluative conditioning in infancy

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 09-03-2022

DOI: 10.1002/DEV.22244

Abstract: There is tentative evidence that infants can learn preferences through evaluative conditioning to socioemotional stimuli. However, the early development of evaluative conditioning and the factors that may explain infants’ capacity to learn through evaluative conditioning are not well understood. Infants ( N = 319 50.2% boys) participated in a longitudinal study where an evaluative conditioning paradigm using socioemotional stimuli was conducted on two occasions (when infants were 7 and 14 months old, on average). We tested whether repeatedly pairing neutral stimuli (triangular and square shapes) with affective stimuli (angry and happy faces) affects infants’ preferences for these shapes. At both timepoints, the majority of infants did not choose the shape that was paired with happy faces, indicating that, in general, learning through evaluative conditioning was not present. However, as expected, in idual differences were evident such that infants who spent more time fixating on faces compared to shapes (face‐preferrers) during the conditioning trials were significantly more likely than non‐face‐preferrers to choose the shape paired with happy faces, and this effect strengthened with increasing age.

Measuring habit formation through goal-directed response switching

Publisher: Center for Open Science

Date: 03-02-2019

DOI: 10.31234/OSF.IO/XNMFC

Reward Rapidly Enhances Visual Perception

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 11-11-2021

DOI: 10.1177/09567976211021843

Abstract: Rewards exert a deep influence on our cognition and behavior. Here, we used a paradigm in which reward information was provided at either encoding or retrieval of a brief, masked stimulus to show that reward can also rapidly modulate perceptual encoding of visual information. Experiment 1 ( n = 30 adults) showed that participants’ response accuracy was enhanced when a to-be-encoded grating signaled high reward relative to low reward, but only when the grating was presented very briefly and participants reported that they were not consciously aware of it. Experiment 2 ( n = 29 adults) showed that there was no difference in participants’ response accuracy when reward information was instead provided at the stage of retrieval, ruling out an explanation of the reward-modulation effect in terms of differences in motivated retrieval. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral evidence consistent with a rapid reward modulation of visual perception, which may not require consciousness.

Cannabis use in early adolescence is associated with higher negative schizotypy in females

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Date: 09-2017

DOI: 10.1016/J.EURPSY.2017.07.009

Abstract: The current study examined the relationship between early onset cannabis use (before age 16) and different schizotypy dimensions, and whether gender moderates these associations. Participants were 162 cannabis users, aged 15–24 years, who completed an online assessment examining alcohol and other drug use, psychological distress, and schizotypy. Participants were ided according to whether or not they had started using cannabis before the age of 16 (early onset = 47 later onset = 115) and gender (males = 66 females = 96). The interaction between gender and onset group was significantly associated with the dimension of introvertive anhedonia. Follow-up analyses showed that early onset cannabis use was associated with higher levels of introvertive anhedonia in females only. The current findings suggest that gender is an important moderator in the association between early onset cannabis use, schizotypy, and possibly, psychosis risk.

The outcome predictability bias is evident in overt attention.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 07-2019

DOI: 10.1037/XAN0000210

Abstract: Previous studies of human associative learning have demonstrated that people's experience with a cueing stimulus will change how that cue is treated during subsequent learning. Typically, studies have shown that people pay more attention to cues that were informative in the past, and learn new information about these cues more rapidly (these cues are said to have a higher associability). It has recently been shown that to-be-predicted events (outcomes) can also differ in their associability as a consequence of prior experience. However, to date there is no direct evidence that this change in associability is accompanied by a change in attention, which would provide stronger evidence of a parallel with the effects observed previously with cueing stimuli. In two experiments, we examined this question by tracking eye-gaze to provide a measure of participants' overt attention, as they completed a cued visual search task in which outcome predictability was manipulated. The prior predictability of an outcome stimulus biased eye-gaze and learning rate, in a manner reminiscent of the gaze biases observed in tasks that manipulate cue associability. The present results support the view that outcomes, like cues, can vary in the degree to which they attract both attention and learning resources, as a function of their associative history. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

You do it to yourself: Attentional capture by threat-signaling stimuli persists even when entirely counterproductive.

Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)

Date: 12-2021

DOI: 10.1037/EMO0001003

Abstract: Recent research has demonstrated a counterproductive attentional bias toward threat-related stimuli: under conditions in which fixating on a color distractor stimulus sometimes resulted in an immediate shock, participants were nevertheless more likely to look at this threat-related distractor than a neutral distractor matched for physical salience. However, participants in that prior research may not have realized that their own actions caused delivery of aversive outcomes, such that monitoring for the threat-related distractor may not have been counterproductive from participants' perspective. In Experiment 1 of the current study, we demonstrate that the attentional bias to the threat-related distractor persists (and indeed, becomes stronger) when participants are made explicitly aware that looking at this stimulus is the sole cause of aversive events, which are otherwise avoidable. In Experiment 2 we replicate the bias in informed participants under conditions in which there is additional (reward-driven) motivation to avoid attending to distractors. Taken together with prior findings, the observation of an attentional bias toward the threat-related distractor under these explicitly counterproductive conditions provides strong support for the idea that threat-related stimuli are automatically prioritized by our attentional system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective attention moderates the relationship between attentional capture by signals of nondrug reward and illicit drug use

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 06-2017

DOI: 10.1016/J.DRUGALCDEP.2017.01.041

Abstract: The current study examined whether cognitive control moderates the association between (non-drug) reward-modulated attentional capture and use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD). Participants were 66 university students who completed an assessment including questions about AOD use, a visual search task to measure value-modulated attentional capture, and a goal-directed selective attention task as a measure of cognitive control. The association between the effect of value-modulated attentional capture and illicit drug use was moderated by level of cognitive control. Among participants with lower levels of cognitive control, value-modulated attentional capture was associated with illicit drug use. This was not the case among participants with higher levels of cognitive control, who instead showed a significant association between illicit drug use and self-reported impulsivity, as well as alcohol use. These results provide support for models that view addictive behaviours as resulting from interaction and competition between automatic and more reflective processes. That is, the mechanisms that ultimately drive addictive behaviour may differ between people low or high in cognitive control. This has important implications for understanding the development and maintenance of substance use disorders and potentially their treatment and prevention.

Goal-Directed and Habit-Like Modulations of Stimulus Processing during Reinforcement Learning

Publisher: Society for Neuroscience

Date: 13-02-2017

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3205-16.2017

Abstract: Recent research has shown that perceptual processing of stimuli previously associated with high-value rewards is automatically prioritized even when rewards are no longer available. It has been hypothesized that such reward-related modulation of stimulus salience is conceptually similar to an “attentional habit.” Recording event-related potentials in humans during a reinforcement learning task, we show strong evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Resistance to outcome devaluation (the defining feature of a habit) was shown by the stimulus-locked P1 component, reflecting activity in the extrastriate visual cortex. Analysis at longer latencies revealed a positive component (corresponding to the P3b, from 550–700 ms) sensitive to outcome devaluation. Therefore, distinct spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity were observed corresponding to habitual and goal-directed processes. These results demonstrate that reinforcement learning engages both attentional habits and goal-directed processes in parallel. Consequences for brain and computational models of reinforcement learning are discussed. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The human attentional network adapts to detect stimuli that predict important rewards. A recent hypothesis suggests that the visual cortex automatically prioritizes reward-related stimuli, driven by cached representations of reward value that is, stimulus–response habits. Alternatively, the neural system may track the current value of the predicted outcome. Our results demonstrate for the first time that visual cortex activity is increased for reward-related stimuli even when the rewarding event is temporarily devalued. In contrast, longer-latency brain activity was specifically sensitive to transient changes in reward value. Therefore, we show that both habit-like attention and goal-directed processes occur in the same learning episode at different latencies. This result has important consequences for computational models of reinforcement learning.

Location-based errors in change detection: A challenge for the slots model of visual working memory

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 18-11-2014

DOI: 10.3758/S13421-014-0487-X

Abstract: The slots model of visual working memory, despite its simplicity, has provided an excellent account of data across a number of change detection experiments. In the current research, we provide a new test of the slots model by investigating its ability to account for the increased prevalence of errors when there is a potential for confusion about the location in which items are presented during study. We assume that such location errors in the slots model occur when the feature information for an item in one location is swapped with the feature information for an item in another location. We show that such a model predicts two factors that will influence the extent to which location errors occur: (1) whether the test item changes to an "external" item not presented at study, or to an "internal" item presented at another location during study, and (2) the number of items in the study array. We manipulate these factors in an experiment, and show that the slots model with location errors fails to provide a satisfactory account of the observed data.

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP200103288

Start Date: 07-2021

End Date: 02-2025

Amount: $330,782.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

ARC Future Fellowships - Grant ID: FT100100260

Start Date: 11-2011

End Date: 10-2015

Amount: $679,782.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP140103268

Start Date: 03-2014

End Date: 09-2017

Amount: $311,670.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP140104394

Start Date: 02-2014

End Date: 02-2018

Amount: $346,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP170101715

Start Date: 2017

End Date: 06-2020

Amount: $393,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP200101314

Start Date: 07-2020

End Date: 05-2024

Amount: $357,838.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP170101684

Start Date: 2017

End Date: 06-2020

Amount: $295,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council