| Title: |
Sympathetic involvement in time-constrained sequential foraging |
| Authors: |
Dundon, NM; Garrett, NJ; Babenko, V; Cieslak, M; Daw, ND; Grafton, ST |
| Publisher Information: |
Springer |
| Publication Year: |
2021 |
| Collection: |
Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) |
| Description: |
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. |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
English |
| DOI: |
10.3758/s13415-020-00799-0 |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00799-0; https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:936d9011-7ea7-47dd-8583-20dea7dcef5b |
| Rights: |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess ; CC Attribution (CC BY) |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.A77DE000 |
| Database: |
BASE |