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Instrumental learning of traits versus rewards: dissociable neural correlates and effects on choice
Leor M Hackel1, Bradley B Doll2,3, David M Amodio1,2
1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.
Abstract:
Humans learn about people and objects through positive and negative experiences, yet they can also look beyond the immediate reward of an interaction to encode trait-level attributes. We found that perceivers encoded both reward and trait-level information through feedback in an instrumental learning task, but relied more heavily on trait representations in cross-context decisions. Both learning types implicated ventral striatum, but trait learning also recruited a network associated with social impression formation.
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