Achievement motivation modulates Pavlovian aversive conditioning to goal-relevant stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Pavlovian aversive conditioning is a fundamental form of learning helping organisms survive in their environment. Previous research has suggested that organisms are prepared to preferentially learn to fear stimuli that have posed threats to survival across evolution. Here, we examined whether enhanced Pavlovian aversive conditioning can occur to stimuli that are relevant to the organism's concerns beyond biological and evolutionary considerations, and whether such preferential learning is modulated by inter-individual differences in affect and motivation. Seventy-two human participants performed a spatial cueing task where the goal-relevance of initially neutral stimuli was experimentally manipulated. They subsequently underwent a differential Pavlovian aversive conditioning paradigm, in w

SUBMITTER: Stussi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6482202 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature