Program

The ability to flexibly adjust behavior in response to environmental changes is crucial for survival. This symposium will explore psychophysiological and computational mechanisms underlying expectation adaptation in reinforcement learning, integrating perspectives from both reward and threat learning. By leveraging eye-tracking, psychophysiology (e.g., EDA, ECG, pupil dilation, fMRI), virtual reality, and computational modeling, we aim to elucidate how individuals dynamically update their expectations in changing environments and adjust their behavior accordingly.

The session will begin with Ecem Tavacioglu (University of Würzburg), who will present findings on whether attentional biases during fear acquisition and reversal learning are primarily driven by threat value, predictability, or uncertainty. Next, Ondrej Zika (Karolinska Institute & MPIB) will examine how trait anxiety influences the mechanisms of context-dependent learning in changing aversive environments. Building on these insights, Francesco Tortora (University of Würzburg) will explore how the intricate interplay between elemental and contextual representations in fear learning shapes physiology and behavior within a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. Shifting toward developmental and clinical perspectives, Lorenz Deserno (University Hospital Würzburg) will present research on how ADHD impacts on reversal learning and its neural correlates (fMRI) in childhood and adolescence and how this relates to psychostimulant treatment response. Finally, Florian Schlagenhauf (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin) will focus on goal-directed control in individuals with alcohol use disorder by investigating how reinforcement learning mechanisms contribute to maladaptive decision-making in addiction.

This symposium will provide a comprehensive multimodal perspective on the psychophysiological foundations of flexible behavioral adaptation, bridging fundamental research with clinical implications.