Learning Requires Attention for Binding Affective Reinforcement to Information Content Chia Mun Foo Scripps College
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Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2015 Learning Requires Attention for Binding Affective Reinforcement to Information Content Chia Mun Foo Scripps College Recommended Citation Foo, Chia Mun, "Learning Requires Attention for Binding Affective Reinforcement to Information Content" (2015). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 555. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/555 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEARNING REQUIRES ATTENTION FOR BINDING AFFECTIVE REINFORCEMENT TO INFORMATION CONTENT by CHIA MUN FOO SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR SPEZIO PROFESSOR CARLSON 2 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my parents for their love and support. Without them, their Skype calls, and the photos that they send of my dogs, Paco and Kenchan, I would not have been able to finish my thesis. Their constant encouragement to relax, eat and sleep has kept me grounded during this process and I am forever grateful to them. I would also like to thank my readers, Professor Spezio and Professor Carlson, for advising me thoroughly throughout this semester. Special thanks to Professor Ma for her help. I am also grateful to Dr. Andreas Kappes at University College London for introducing me to the optimism bias and being a wonderful supervisor during my time at the Affective Brain Lab. Thanks must also be given to Scripps College and the Claremont Colleges for the education I have received. Thank you to the Motley Coffee House for funding my thesis. Thank you to those all at home and abroad for their encouragement: Nila Kakak, Jo, the Aw’s, the Hiu’s, the Adachi family and the Takeuchi family. Thank you to all my friends at the Claremont Colleges for all their support, including Ella, Nicole, Jazzy, Emma and the Yearbook Staff, to name but a few. Also, thank you to the people of 宝塚歌劇団 - including but definitely not limited to 凰稀かなめ, 蘭寿とむ, 大和悠河, 未涼亜希, 柚希礼音 and 紅ゆずる, for the many hours of entertainment. Lastly, thank you Rebecca and Elaine, for all the laughs, tears and adventures during these four years. Rebecca, thank you for tolerating my antics and for being the best roommate, neighbor and friend I could ever hoped for. Elaine, thank you for bringing me to all the places that remind me of home, being my waisek buddy and spending all those hours doing thesis with me at that café. Without the two of you, my college experience would have been incomplete. Table of Contents Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................5 Optimism .......................................................................................................................................10 Causes of Optimism ...........................................................................................................14 Cognitive Biases ....................................................................................................15 Attention .......................................................................................................................................16 Attentional Load ................................................................................................................17 Attention and Affect ......................................................................................................... 18 Attentional Load Task ....................................................................................................... 19 Learning ........................................................................................................................................20 Learning and Affect .......................................................................................................... 20 The Underlying Mechanism of Optimism: Optimistic Learning Bias .......................................... 21 Paradigm ...........................................................................................................................22 Properties of the Optimistic Learning Bias ....................................................................... 24 Individual Differences in the Optimistic Learning Bias ................................................... 25 Age Differences .................................................................................................... 25 Depressed Individuals ........................................................................................... 27 Proposed Study .............................................................................................................................28 Proposed Method ..........................................................................................................................30 Participants ........................................................................................................................30 Materials ...........................................................................................................................31 General Task Design .............................................................................................31 Affective Reinforcers ............................................................................................32 ATTENTION BINDS AFFECTIVE REINFORCEMENT TO INFORMATION 4 Attentional Load ...................................................................................................33 Learning ................................................................................................................ 34 Optimism and Depression .....................................................................................35 Properties of the stimuli ........................................................................................ 35 Procedure ..........................................................................................................................36 Ethics .................................................................................................................................37 Expected Results ...........................................................................................................................39 Discussion .....................................................................................................................................42 References .....................................................................................................................................45 Appendix A ...................................................................................................................................52 Appendix B ...................................................................................................................................53 ATTENTION BINDS AFFECTIVE REINFORCEMENT TO INFORMATION 5 Abstract Humans are limited in their capacity to process information about the environment; to choose the most salient details to process, we have to make rapid value appraisals and prioritize our attentional resources. In this proposed study, it is expected that attention is required to learn from affective information. Learning is measured by the difference between update (the difference between the first and second estimation) and the estimation error (the difference between the average likelihood and the first estimation). Using a belief-updating paradigm, participants will be asked to estimate their likelihood of encountering a negative event, once before and once after they receive the average likelihood information. By comparing the difference in estimations after being exposed to desirable or undesirable information and a positive or negative reinforcer across three levels of attentional load, the effects of attention on learning from affective reinforcement can be examined. It is proposed that attention mediates learning from affective information. This is demonstrated by the failure to learn differentially from affective information under high attentional load, while in a no load condition participants will learn differentially according to the type of news and affective reinforcer that they receive. The expected result would indicate that attention is a necessity for optimal learning outcomes, especially when learning from affective information. This has implications in the effectiveness of communicating affective information, such as in the health care field. Keywords: Optimism Bias, Attention Modulation, Affective Reinforcement, Learning ATTENTION BINDS AFFECTIVE REINFORCEMENT TO INFORMATION 6 Learning Requires Attention for Binding Affective Reinforcement to Information Content “Look on the bright side,” - a common consoling advice given to someone who is in the midst of a difficult situation. The nature of this advice implies that life ought to be full of positive events, which is a puzzling attitude given the reality of the world. It is theorized that this optimistic tendency is caused by a selective bias to learn better from desirable information compared to undesirable information. Due to a limited capacity in our ability to process information, attention is necessary to select the