title: Reinforcement learning deficits in people with schizophrenia persist after extended trials.
abstract: Previous research suggests that people with schizophrenia have difficulty learning from positive feedback and when learning needs to occur rapidly. However, they seem to have relatively intact learning from negative feedback when learning occurs gradually. Participants are typically given a limited amount of acquisition trials to learn the reward contingencies and then tested about what they learned. The current study examined whether participants with schizophrenia continue to display these deficits when given extra time to learn the contingences. Participants with schizophrenia and matched healthy controls completed the Probabilistic Selection Task, which measures positive and negative feedback learning separately. Participants with schizophrenia showed a deficit in learning from both positive feedback and negative feedback. These reward learning deficits persisted even if people with schizophrenia are given extra time (up to 10 blocks of 60 trials) to learn the reward contingencies. These results suggest that the observed deficits cannot be attributed solely to slower learning and instead reflect a specific deficit in reinforcement learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States. Electronic address: dcicero@hawaii.edu.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Cicero
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
authors.forename: Theresa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States.
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kerns
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D030141:Feedback, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012201:Reward; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology
keywords: Approach; Avoidance; Dopamine; Punishment; Reward