| The symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder(OCD)are mainly obsessions and compulsions.Obsessions are persistent and repetitive thoughts;compulsions are characterized by motivate rigid and ritualistic behaviors.In the two major theories of learning,the causes of emotional abnormalities in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder are explored with the classic conditioning as the entry point.The classic conditional learning process establishes a connection between conditioned stimulus(CS)and unconditioned stimulus(US)to enable individuals to Conditioned stimulus forms a conditioned response(CR),which includes acquisition,generalization,and extinction.Researchers use the discriminative condition paradigm to find that extinction ability of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder is impaired,and the distorted connection between learned conditional and unconditional stimuli cannot be corrected,leaving patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder in a situation of excessive worry for a long time and forming obsessions.About the operant conditioning mechanism,giving individual feedback results(O)to strengthen the frequency of response(R),the individual forms a connection between the stimulus(S)-response(R)-result(O),and the individual’s behavior drives outcome-oriented,its behavioral control system belongs to the goaloriented system(stimulus-response-result,S-R-O).Behaviors repeat many times,and individual behaviors are gradually automated and habitual.At this time,the performance of behaviors is more controlled by the habitual behavior system(stimulus-response,S-R).The research adopted the outcome-devalued paradigm and found that the behaviors of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder showed a damaged goal-oriented system and excessive habits.This provides a perspective to explain the pathology of compulsions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.OCD is susceptible to ignoring surrounding safety information due to overassessment of threats.At the same time,patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder are more likely to generalize the response of the threat signal to similar safety signals,and are more inclined to interpret fuzzy stimuli as dangerous stimuli,which also results in generalization.A spotlight on the contamination is a common obsession in OCD,especially in the contamination-based Obsessive-Compulsive Individuals.Patients are mainly worried about being contaminated and infected with the disease.It contains fear and disgust.Contamination-based subtypes patients often have a strong aversion when responding to threat stimuli.Therefore,the degree of generalization and duration of aversive stimuli in forced cleaning individuals may provide a basis for the forced cleaning individuals to get rid of the phenomenon of obsessions that frequently and repeatedly cleans themselves.In order to get rid of this puzzle,contamination-based patients may adopt the ritualized behavior of repeated hand washing.This negative reinforcement strengthens the frequency of neutralization behaviors,and biases the behavior control system of forced washing individuals to the habitual behavior system.Reinforcement includes positive reinforcement(money,point reward)and negative reinforcement(aversion to source aversion,aversion to conditional stimulus).The design of the outcome devalued paradigm often uses positive reinforcement to strengthen the formation of individual behavior.Therefore,the result depreciation paradigm needs to be improved.The effect of negative reinforcement on the habitual behavior characteristics of forced cleansing individuals improves the external validity of the study.Study 1 uses a discriminative conditional paradigm,analyzes the two dependent variable indicators from subjective expectations and skin conductance response values,selects aversive pictures as unconditional stimuli,and uses groups(high-compulsive contamination group vs.low-compulsive contamination group)as between-subject variables.The stimulus type was the within variable of the subjects.Starting from the principle of classical conditioning,the characteristics of acquisition,generalization and extinction of aversive conditioned stimuli by high-compulsive contamination group were investigated.The results found that:(1)in the acquisition stage,the subjective expected value of conditioned aversive stimulation in individuals with high-compulsive contamination group was significantly higher than that in individuals with low highcompulsive contamination group,and no significant difference was seen in the skin conductance response between the two groups;the main effects of stimulation types were different significantly,the interaction between stimulation types and groups was not significant.(2)In the generalization stage,the generalization process and the type of the generalization stimulus are used as the within variables of the subjects,and the group is the between-subject variable.The results on the two dependent variable indicators are the same: the third-order interaction is not significant,and the type of stimulation and the group the interactions between different types are significantly different,the interactions between the stimulus type and the generalization process are significant,and the interactions between the generalization time process and the group are not significant.The main effects of group,generalization process and stimulus type were significant.Compared with individuals with low-compulsive contamination group,individuals with high-compulsive contamination group have higher subjective expectation values for GS4 and GS3 generalized stimuli that are more similar to conditioned stimulus CS +,and have greater skin conductance response.Study 2 selected pollution aversion pictures,general aversion pictures,reward pictures,and loss pictures as the four outcome types,and improved the outcome devalued paradigm,which was divided into the acquisition stage and the devaluation stage.(1)The acquisition phase,the learning process and outcome type are the within variables of the subjects,and the groups are the between-subject variables.The correct rate is recorded.Only the significant interaction between the learning process and the group is found,and the main effect of the learning process is significant.Taking the response time as the dependent variable index,it was found that there were significantly in the types of outcome and the main effects of the learning process.Besides no significant was found;the accuracy rate of individuals with high-compulsive contamination group was significantly lower than that of individuals with low-compulsive contamination group during the first half of the time;the outcome-response-behavior association response time was faster than the other three outcome-type acquisition responses.(2)Devaluation stage,using 2(group: high-compulsive contamination group vs.low-compulsive contamination group)× 4 result types(contaminated aversion pictures,general aversion pictures,reward pictures and loss pictures)two-factor mixed experimental design.The devaluation response rate is the indicator of the dependent variable.The results were as follows: there was an interaction between the two groups,and the high-compulsive contamination group had a higher devaluatio response rate to reward-type outcome and contaminated-averse outcome.The devaluation response rate of individuals with high-compulsive contamination group was significantly higher than that of individuals with lowcompulsive contamination group.The response rate for aversive outcomes was higher than the other three outcome types.Analysis conclusion:(1)In the classic conditioning effect of conditioned aversive stimulus,individuals with high-compulsive contamination group showed a exaggerated generalization and impaired extinction.(2)In the operant system of high-compulsive contamination individuals that strengthen behaviors with contamination-related negative reinforcements and rewardtype positive reinforcements,it is more difficult to inhibit behavioral responses to devaluation of outcomes,and behaviors become excessively habitual. |
