Sympathetic involvement in time-constrained sequential foraging

Abstract: Appraising sequential offers relative to an unknown future opportunity and a time cost requires an optimization policy that draws on a learned estimate of an environment’s richness. Converging evidence points to a learning asymmetry, whereby estimates of this richness update with a bias toward integrating positive information. We replicate this bias in a sequential foraging (prey selection) task and probe associated activation within the sympathetic branch of the autonomic system, using trial-by-trial measures of simultaneously recorded cardiac autonomic physiology. We reveal a unique adaptive role for the sympathetic branch in learning. It was specifically associated with adaptation to a deteriorating environment: it correlated with both the rate of negative information integration in belief estimates and downward changes in moment-to-moment environmental richness, and was predictive of optimal performance on the task. The findings are consistent with a framework whereby autonomic function supports the learning demands of prey selection

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Cognitive, affective, & behavioral neuroscience. - 20, 4 (2020) , 730-745, ISSN: 1531-135X

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2020
• Creator: Dundon, Neil Michael ; Garrett, Neil ; Babenko, Viktoriya ; Cieslak, Matt ; Daw, Nathaniel D. ; Grafton, Scott T.

Further information

• DOI: 10.3758/s13415-020-00799-0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-1670370
• Rights: Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:55 PM CET