Trial reportPloS one2017
Stress enhances model-free reinforcement learning only after negative outcome.
Trial report in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- No evidence for increased habitual or decreased goal-directed action control after acute stress.PloS one · 2025Article
- Model-free decision-making underlies motor errors in rapid sequential movements under threat.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Decision-Making and Risk-Propensity Changes during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Computational perspectives on human fear and anxiety.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- The modulation of acute stress on model-free and model-based reinforcement learning in gambling disorder.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2022Article
- Hunger improves reinforcement-driven but not planned action.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
- Experimentally induced and real-world anxiety have no demonstrable effect on goal-directed behaviour.Psychological medicine · 2021Article
- Valuing what happens: a biogenic approach to valence and (potentially) affect.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Trait impulsivity and acute stress interact to influence choice and decision speed during multi-stage decision-making.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Comparison of the Association Between Goal-Directed Planning and Self-reported Compulsivity vs Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Diagnosis.JAMA psychiatry · 2020Article
- Article
- Ciliary neurotrophic factor signaling in the rat orbitofrontal cortex ameliorates stress-induced deficits in reversal learning.Neuropharmacology · 2019Article
- Animal models of OCD-relevant processes: an RDoC perspective.Journal of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders · 2019Article
- An omnidirectional visualization model of personalized gene regulatory networks.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2019Article
- The Associations of Emotion Coping Appraisal With Both the Cue-Outcome Contingency and Perceived Verbal Abuse Exposure.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Article
- A longitudinal study on the change of eating disorder-specific and nonspecific habits during weight rehabilitation in anorexia nervosa.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
- The role of stress in the pathogenesis and maintenance of obsessive-compulsive disorder.Chronic stress (Thousand Oaks, Calif.)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous studies found that stress shifts behavioral control by promoting habits while decreasing goal-directed behaviors during reward-based decision-making. It is, however, unclear how stress disrupts the relative contribution of the two systems controlling reward-seeking behavior, i.e. model-free (or habit) and model-based (or goal-directed). Here, we investigated whether stress biases the contribution of model-free and model-based reinforcement learning processes differently depending on the valence of outcome, and whether stress alters the learning rate, i.e., how quickly information from the new environment is incorporated into choices. Participants were randomly assigned to either a stress or a control condition, and performed a two-stage Markov decision-making task in which the reward probabilities underwent periodic reversals without notice. We found that stress increased the contribution of model-free reinforcement learning only after negative outcome. Furthermore, stress decreased the learning rate. The results suggest that stress diminishes one's ability to make adaptive choices in multiple aspects of reinforcement learning. This finding has implications for understanding how stress facilitates maladaptive habits, such as addictive behavior, and other dysfunctional behaviors associated with stress in clinical and educational contexts.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.