Talk abstracts > Hanneke den Ouden (Donders, Nijmegen)

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Hanneke den Ouden - Donders, Nijmegen

Friday, June 2^nd

Talk Session 4: Alteration of decisions in psychiatry

13h30 - 14h

 Adaptive biases in motivated action: computations, brains and psychopathology

Behaviour is not only shaped by ‘rational’ learning from experience, but also by ‘hardwired’ motivational biases, like a tendency to approach and invigorate responding at the promise of a reward. These biases are proposed to provide sensible default ‘fast-and-frugal’ actions (priors), especially helpful when you need to be fast, or the environment unfamiliar. However, exaggerated motivational biases may also lie at the core of mental health problems such as anxiety and mood disorders. If motivational biases can be so harmful, then why are they so persistent? I will first present data from a large-scale online study that shows that the ability to suppress motivational biases adaptively is paradoxically associated with lower mental health. I will then discuss a novel take on the adaptive nature of these motivational biases, presenting a recent findings suggesting that their role goes beyond just a ‘default’ response, and that we may adaptively recruit these biases to flexibly support instrumental behaviour.