Abstract

VILA, Javier; DOMINGUEZ-MARTINEZ, Josué  and  ROJAS-ITURRIA, Fátima. The effect of Differential Outcomes Procedure during discriminated avoidance learning in humans. Rev Arg Cs Comp. [online]. 2019, vol.11, n.1, pp.16-24.  Epub Feb 15, 2019. ISSN 1852-4206.

Use of unique outcomes for each of two correct responses in a discrimination task (Differential Outcomes Procedure; DOP) in appetitive tasks has been shown to enhance learning. Use of an avoidance task would seem to rule out response-outcome associations because by the nature of an avoidance task, because correct responses and aversive outcomes never co-occur. One experiment shows the DOP effect in a discriminative avoidance task. To demonstrate the effects of the pavlovian relationship between the stimulus and the aversive event in avoidance tasks, two groups of participants were compared, one with differential outcomes (DO) and another with common outcomes (CC). Results showed a greater learning for CD group, due to the role of pavlovian relations in avoidance learning. Results suggest that fear is not a unitary state and that the fears conditioned to different events are discriminable states with stimulus properties that can guide the choices of two avoidance responses.

Keywords : avoidance learning; differential outcomes procedure; discriminated avoidance; humans.

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