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The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach

Individuals with psychopathy often show deficits in learning, which often have negative consequences. Several theories have been proposed to explain psychopathic behaviors, but the learning mechanisms in psychopathy are still unclear. To clarify the learning anomalies in psychopathy, we fitted reinf...

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Autores principales: Oba, Takeyuki, Katahira, Kentaro, Ohira, Hideki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6838140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31736830
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02432
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author Oba, Takeyuki
Katahira, Kentaro
Ohira, Hideki
author_facet Oba, Takeyuki
Katahira, Kentaro
Ohira, Hideki
author_sort Oba, Takeyuki
collection PubMed
description Individuals with psychopathy often show deficits in learning, which often have negative consequences. Several theories have been proposed to explain psychopathic behaviors, but the learning mechanisms in psychopathy are still unclear. To clarify the learning anomalies in psychopathy, we fitted reinforcement learning (RL) models to behavioral data. We conducted two experiments to examine the effect of psychopathy as a group difference (Experiment 1) and as a continuum (Experiment 2). Forty-three undergraduates (in Experiment 1) and fifty-five undergraduate and graduate students (in Experiment 2) performed a go/no-go based learning task with accompanying rewards or punishments. Although we observed no differences in learning performance among the levels of psychopathic traits, the learning rate for the positive prediction error in the loss domain was lower for those with high-psychopathic trait than for those with low-psychopathic trait. This finding indicates that individuals with high-psychopathic traits update an action value less when they avoid a negative outcome. Our model can represent previous theories under a computational framework and provide a new perspective on impaired learning in psychopathy.
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spelling pubmed-68381402019-11-15 The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach Oba, Takeyuki Katahira, Kentaro Ohira, Hideki Front Psychol Psychology Individuals with psychopathy often show deficits in learning, which often have negative consequences. Several theories have been proposed to explain psychopathic behaviors, but the learning mechanisms in psychopathy are still unclear. To clarify the learning anomalies in psychopathy, we fitted reinforcement learning (RL) models to behavioral data. We conducted two experiments to examine the effect of psychopathy as a group difference (Experiment 1) and as a continuum (Experiment 2). Forty-three undergraduates (in Experiment 1) and fifty-five undergraduate and graduate students (in Experiment 2) performed a go/no-go based learning task with accompanying rewards or punishments. Although we observed no differences in learning performance among the levels of psychopathic traits, the learning rate for the positive prediction error in the loss domain was lower for those with high-psychopathic trait than for those with low-psychopathic trait. This finding indicates that individuals with high-psychopathic traits update an action value less when they avoid a negative outcome. Our model can represent previous theories under a computational framework and provide a new perspective on impaired learning in psychopathy. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6838140/ /pubmed/31736830 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02432 Text en Copyright © 2019 Oba, Katahira and Ohira. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Oba, Takeyuki
Katahira, Kentaro
Ohira, Hideki
The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title_full The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title_fullStr The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title_full_unstemmed The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title_short The Effect of Reduced Learning Ability on Avoidance in Psychopathy: A Computational Approach
title_sort effect of reduced learning ability on avoidance in psychopathy: a computational approach
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6838140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31736830
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02432
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