Shahar, N;
Hauser, TU;
Moran, R;
Moutoussis, M;
NSPN consortium;
Bullmore, ET;
Dolan, RJ;
(2021)
Assigning the right credit to the wrong action: compulsivity in the general population is associated with augmented outcome-irrelevant value-based learning.
Translational Psychiatry
, 11
, Article 564. 10.1038/s41398-021-01642-x.
Preview |
Text
s41398-021-01642-x.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Compulsive behavior is enacted under a belief that a specific act controls the likelihood of an undesired future event. Compulsive behaviors are widespread in the general population despite having no causal relationship with events they aspire to influence. In the current study, we tested whether there is an increased tendency to assign value to aspects of a task that do not predict an outcome (i.e., outcome-irrelevant learning) among individuals with compulsive tendencies. We studied 514 healthy individuals who completed self-report compulsivity, anxiety, depression, and schizotypal measurements, and a well-established reinforcement-learning task (i.e., the two-step task). As expected, we found a positive relationship between compulsivity and outcome-irrelevant learning. Specifically, individuals who reported having stronger compulsive tendencies (e.g., washing, checking, grooming) also tended to assign value to response keys and stimuli locations that did not predict an outcome. Controlling for overall goal-directed abilities and the co-occurrence of anxious, depressive, or schizotypal tendencies did not impact these associations. These findings indicate that outcome-irrelevant learning processes may contribute to the expression of compulsivity in a general population setting. We highlight the need for future research on the formation of non-veridical action-outcome associations as a factor related to the occurrence and maintenance of compulsive behavior.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Assigning the right credit to the wrong action: compulsivity in the general population is associated with augmented outcome-irrelevant value-based learning |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41398-021-01642-x |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01642-x |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| 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 > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology 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 |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10137924 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
