Background and objectives

Appetitive and aversive conditioning are thought to be involved in the development and maintenance of mental disorders including anxiety, mood, eating, and substance use disorders. However, few studies measure the relative strength of appetitive and aversive associations, and their relevance to the risk of mental disorders. This study aims to address this gap.

Methods

We tested how readily healthy volunteers acquire appetitive vs. aversive associations. 150 participants associated complex 3D objects with either gain or loss and made decisions to gain or avoid losing points. We investigated the relationship of a learning asymmetry with neuroticism, impulsivity, and anhedonia, to test the hypothesis that a stronger learning asymmetry corresponds to more extreme scores on these traits.

Results

Impulsivity was positively associated with the learning asymmetry (R² = .10). This resulted from an inverse relation with the strength of aversive associations, indicating that impulsive individuals are worse at aversive learning. However, appetitive associations did not differ significantly. No correlations with neuroticism or anhedonia were found.

Limitations

Conditioning studies typically use primary reinforcers and a CS-. Lacking these may make these results less comparable to other studies.

Conclusions

We demonstrate that the learning asymmetry can measure individual differences linked to personality traits, and that impulsivity, normally linked with appetitive learning, also influences aversive learning. These results enable additional studies of learning asymmetry in relation to mental disorders, which could include measurements of mental health symptoms to provide further insight into how appetitive and aversive learning interacts with mental disorders.

中文翻译：

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冲动个体的厌恶性条件反射受到损害：一项关于学习不对称性的研究

背景和目标

食欲和厌恶调节被认为与精神障碍的发展和维持有关，包括焦虑、情绪、饮食和物质使用障碍。然而，很少有研究衡量食欲和厌恶关联的相对强度及其与精神障碍风险的相关性。本研究旨在解决这一差距。

方法

我们测试了健康志愿者获得食欲联想和厌恶联想的容易程度。150 名参与者将复杂的 3D 对象与得失联系起来，并做出获得或避免失分的决定。我们研究了学习不对称与神经质、冲动和快感缺失的关系，以检验以下假设：更强的学习不对称对应于这些特征的更极端的分数。

结果

冲动与学习不对称呈正相关（R ²  = .10）。这是由于与厌恶联想的强度成反比关系，表明冲动的人在厌恶学习方面表现较差。然而，食欲关联并没有显着差异。没有发现与神经质或快感缺失的相关性。

局限性

条件反射研究通常使用初级强化物和 CS-。缺乏这些可能会使这些结果与其他研究的可比性较差。

结论

我们证明，学习不对称可以衡量与人格特质相关的个体差异，而通常与食欲性学习相关的冲动也会影响厌恶性学习。这些结果使得能够对与精神障碍相关的学习不对称性进行更多研究，其中可能包括对心理健康症状的测量，以进一步了解食欲和厌恶学习如何与精神障碍相互作用。