Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Grassi, Francesco
• Semmelhack, Esther A.
• Ruge, Julia
• Schacht, Anne

Titel

On the dynamics of gain and loss: Electrophysiological evidence from associative learning

Ist Teil von

• Biological psychology, 2023-05, Vol.180, p.108588-108588, Article 108588

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Associated relevance affects the sensory encoding of low-level visual features of symbolic stimuli. It is unclear, however, which dimension of low-level visual features benefits from prioritized processing, and how these effects develop throughout the course of relevance acquisition. Moreover, previous evidence is inconclusive regarding the preservation of processing advantage once the association is no longer relevant, as well as its generalization to perceptually similar but novel stimuli. The present study addresses these questions by employing an associative learning paradigm. In two experiments (N = 24 each, between-subject design), different dimensions of low-level visual features of symbolic stimuli were associated with monetary gain, loss, or zero outcome. In a consecutive old/new decision task, associated stimuli were presented together with perceptually similar but novel stimuli. Event-related brain potentials (P1, EPN, LPC) were measured throughout both sessions. Early sensory encoding (P1) was boosted by loss association and appeared to be sensitive to the dimension of the associated low-level visual features. Gain association influenced post-perceptual processing stages (LPC), arising over the course of the learning phase, and are preserved even when the associated outcome was no longer relevant. Gain association also resulted in EPN modulations similar to the effects observed in the case of emotional words. None of the observed effects generalized to perceptually similar stimuli. These results show that acquired relevance can influence the sensory processing of specific dimensions of low-level visual features. Moreover, this study extends previous evidence of a dissociation of early and late neural effects of associated motivational relevance. •Dissociation of early and late neural effects of associated relevance during learning.•P1 modulated by loss association to the characters but not the font of the stimuli.•Gain association boosts LPC, even when association is no longer relevant for the task.•EPN modulations by gain association similar to the ones observed for emotional words.•None of the observed effects generalized to perceptually similar but novel stimuli.