The Impact of Stress on Learning: Exploring How Stress Changes Learning about Positive and Negative Outcomes and the Role of Anxiety

Abstract

Stress has a strong influence on learning, particularly about positive and negative outcomes. However, it is unclear whether stress enhances or disrupts learning about positive and negative outcomes due to inconsistent findings in the literature. There is a possibility that stress affects learning from appetitive and aversive prediction errors. Prediction error refers to the discrepancy between observed and expected outcomes. This discrepancy is considered to be crucial to generate new learning. To test this, a blocking design was used to assess learning from prediction errors in stressful versus non-stressful conditions. A blocking design consists of learning about a stimulus (e.g. X) that is reduced if it is paired with another stimulus (e.g. A) that is a better predictor of the outcome (e.g. A  outcome; AX  outcome). The outcome is not surprising on AX trials because A has already been associated with the outcome; therefore the prediction error is small and this reduces learning about X. X is a redundant predictor of the outcome, so learning about it should be blocked. Results show that learning about the blocked stimulus was reduced under threat but only for positive outcomes. This seems to indicate that learning is streamlined under threat where only relevant stimuli with positive outcomes are focused on. In safe conditions and for negative outcomes, more general learning is used.