{"id":"doi:10.7554/elife.34779","kind":"article","title":"Value generalization in human avoidance learning","authors":["Agnes Norbury","Trevor William Robbins","Ben Seymour"],"author_count":3,"year":2018,"published":"2018-05-07","venue":"eLife","cited_by":55,"doi":"10.7554/elife.34779","arxiv_id":null,"nct_id":null,"source_url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.34779","archive_url":"https://space-kitty.com/papers/doi:10.7554/elife.34779","updated":null,"pmid":"29735014","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"W2771165717","pdf_url":null,"abstract":"Generalization during aversive decision-making allows us to avoid a broad range of potential threats following experience with a limited set of exemplars. However, over-generalization, resulting in excessive and inappropriate avoidance, has been implicated in a variety of psychological disorders. Here, we use reinforcement learning modelling to dissect out different contributions to the generalization of instrumental avoidance in two groups of human volunteers (N = 26, N = 482). We found that generalization of avoidance could be parsed into perceptual and value-based processes, and further, that value-based generalization could be subdivided into that relating to aversive and neutral feedback − with corresponding circuits including primary sensory cortex, anterior insula, amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Further, generalization from aversive, but not neutral, feedback was associated with self-reported anxiety and intrusive thoughts. These results reveal a set of distinct mechanisms that mediate generalization in avoidance learning, and show how specific individual differences within them can yield anxiety.","abstract_license":"CC-BY (publisher license, via OpenAlex)","license":"cc-by","is_open_access":true,"retracted":false,"peer_reviewed":null,"categories":["Memory and Neural Mechanisms"],"details":null,"provenance":"openalex","attribution":"Abstract of \"Value generalization in human avoidance learning\" by Agnes Norbury, Trevor William Robbins, Ben Seymour, https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.34779, used under its Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY); markup removed, otherwise unmodified.","topics":[{"slug":"alignment-safety","name":"AI Alignment & Safety","domain_slug":"ai"}],"cited_in_dossiers":[]}