Week 2.1.2: Learning about the World Flashcards
This theory suggests that individuals with psychosis have difficulty distinguishing between important (high salience) and unimportant (low salience) stimuli.
Essentially, they might perceive trivial events as highly significant and vice versa.
Aberrant Salience
This refers to the initial occurrence of psychotic symptoms in an individual.
First Episode Psychosis
These are pronounced and severe symptoms of psychosis, such as vivid hallucinations or strong delusions.
Florid Psychotic Symptoms
Feedback given in a manner that is not guaranteed but based on probability.
Ex: sometimes participants received feedback, and sometimes they did not, depending on the likelihood.
Probabilistic Feedback
A type of task where participants learn to perform actions to achieve rewards.
Instrumental Learning Task
The amount of time it takes for a participant to respond to a stimulus.
Reaction Times
A phenomenon where individuals respond faster to stimuli that are associated with potential rewards compared to neutral stimuli.
Reinforcement Related Speeding
Refers to a difference that is less pronounced or smaller than expected.
Attenuated Difference
Refers to both sides of the midbrain, a region involved in vision, hearing, motor control, sleep/wake, arousal, and temperature regulation.
Bilateral Midbrain
A region in the midbrain involved in movement and reward.
Substantia Nigra
What are the neural responses of individuals with psychosis towards rewards?
Patients’ brains did not distinguish between irrelevant, neutral, and relevant rewarding stimuli.
Adjusting expectations based on new information about previously learned associations.
Retrospective Revaluation
Is a process in associative learning where the expectancy associated with an absent cue is increased because another cue, previously paired with an outcome, is presented without that outcome.
This leads to a shift in expectation to the absent cue.
Unovershadowing
A learning process in which a connection is made between two stimuli or between a stimulus and a response.
Associative Learning
How is aberrant salience exhibited in patience with psychosis?
Increased Importance to Neutral Stimuli: Patients with psychosis might attribute excessive significance to neutral or irrelevant stimuli. For example, they might find a neutral event highly important or meaningful when it typically wouldn’t be.
Decreased Importance to Salient Stimuli: Conversely, they might fail to recognize the importance of truly significant stimuli. For instance, they might not respond appropriately to events that are genuinely important or rewarding.
