Habits and Affects : Learning by an Associative Two-Process

In animal learning theory, the notion of habits is frequently employed to describe instrumental behaviour that is (among others): inflexible (i.e. slow to change), unconscious, insensitive to reinforcer devaluation (Dickinson 1985, Seger & Spiering 2011). It has also been suggested that learning using reinforcement learning algorithms somewhat reflects a transition from affect-based to more habit-based behaviour (Seger & Spiering 2011) where dual memory systems for affective working memory and standard (e.g. spatial) working memory systems exist (Davidson & Irwin 1999, Watanabe et al. 2007). Associative Two-Process theory has been proposed to explain phenomena emergent from differential outcomes training. In this procedure, animals (sometimes humans) are presented with stimuli/objects that uniquely identify differential outcomes, e.g. a circle stimulus precedes the presentation of a food outcome, a square stimulus precedes the presentation of a toy outcome. Outcomes are, in turn, mitigated by specific responses, e.g. press the right button to obtain the food, press the left button to obtain the toy. Manipulating these stimuli, response, outcome contingencies reveals the two types of memory, i.e. one that concerns ‘standard’ working memory of stimulus-response associations, the other that concerns ‘prospective’ memory, that stimulus-expectation-response follows in a sequence.

In this work, I discuss the associative two-process model in relation to (standard) working memory and ‘affective working memory’. I refer to a number of animal learning paradigms that demonstrate the potential for reward and reward omission anticipation to be associated with reward-promoting behaviour (cf. Overmier & Lawry 1979, Kruse & Overmier 1982, Urcuioli 2013, Lowe & Billing 2017). I show that, within an associative two-process context, habits can also be understood in terms of affective working memory – specifically in relation to reward acquisition expectation and reward omission expectation. Habits, in this context are considered behaviours that are inflexibly selected for in spite of reinforcer devaluation and their rigidity reflects the certainty / uncertainty of a particular rewarding outcome. 

We discuss the implications for such learning of habits and affective mediations of behaviour particularly regarding memory and clinical conditions (e.g. alzheimer’s) and learning children. This may be informing of new digitized solutions for intervention approaches with senior citizens and pedagogy in relation to children development.

References

Dickinson, A. (1985). Actions and habits: the development of behavioural autonomy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 308(1135), 67-78.

Davidson R.J and Irwin, W. The functional neuroanatomy of  emotion and affective style. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience,  3: 11-21, 1999.


Kruse, J. M., and Overmier, J. B. (1982). Anticipation of reward  omission as a cue for choice behavior. Learning and Motivation, 13, 505–525.


Lowe, R. and Billing, E. (2017) Affective-Associative Two-Process theory: A neural network investigation of adaptive behaviour in differential outcomes training, Adaptive Behavior, 25 (1), 5-23

Overmier, J. B., & Lawry, J.A. (1979). Pavlovian conditioning and the mediation of behavior. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 13, 1–55.

Seger, C. A., & Spiering, B. J. (2011). A critical review of habit learning and the basal ganglia. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 5. 

Urcuioli, P. (2013). Stimulus control and stimulus class for- mation. In Madden, G. J., Dube, W. V., Hackenberg, T. D., Hanley, G. P., & Lattal, K. A. (eds), APA Handbook of Behavior Analysis (Vol. 1, pp. 361–386). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Watanabe, M., Hikosaka, K., Sakagami, M., & Shirakawa, S. (2007). Reward expectancy-related prefrontal neuronal activities: Are they neural substrates of ‘‘affective’’ working memory? Cortex, 43, 53–64.