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Disentangling the Roles of Approach, Activation and Valence in Instrumental and Pavlovian Responding

Huys, QJM; Cools, R; Golzer, M; Friedel, E; Heinz, A; Dolan, RJ; Dayan, P; (2011) Disentangling the Roles of Approach, Activation and Valence in Instrumental and Pavlovian Responding. PLOS COMPUT BIOL , 7 (4) , Article e1002028. 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002028. Green open access

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Abstract

Hard-wired, Pavlovian, responses elicited by predictions of rewards and punishments exert significant benevolent and malevolent influences over instrumentally-appropriate actions. These influences come in two main groups, defined along anatomical, pharmacological, behavioural and functional lines. Investigations of the influences have so far concentrated on the groups as a whole; here we take the critical step of looking inside each group, using a detailed reinforcement learning model to distinguish effects to do with value, specific actions, and general activation or inhibition. We show a high degree of sophistication in Pavlovian influences, with appetitive Pavlovian stimuli specifically promoting approach and inhibiting withdrawal, and aversive Pavlovian stimuli promoting withdrawal and inhibiting approach. These influences account for differences in the instrumental performance of approach and withdrawal behaviours. Finally, although losses are as informative as gains, we find that subjects neglect losses in their instrumental learning. Our findings argue for a view of the Pavlovian system as a constraint or prior, facilitating learning by alleviating computational costs that come with increased flexibility.

Type: Article
Title: Disentangling the Roles of Approach, Activation and Valence in Instrumental and Pavlovian Responding
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002028
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002028
Language: English
Additional information: © 2011 Huys et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by a Wellcome Trust Grant and a Max Planck Award to RJD. PD was supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Publication costs were shared between the Max Planck Award and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords: DOPAMINE NEURONS ENCODE, ACUTE TRYPTOPHAN DEPLETION, NUCLEUS-ACCUMBENS, CONDITIONED-STIMULUS, BEHAVIORAL-CONTROL, REWARD PREDICTION, LEARNING AUTOMATA, DECISION-MAKING, BASAL GANGLIA, RATING-SCALE
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1307442
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