Adaptive Observational Aversive Learning

was driven by a difference in performance at Level 2, observation of model choice only. Conclusions • Observational aversive learning of a skilled model leads to improved performance compared to individual learning, supportive of previous studies using secondary reinforcers [2]. • Observational learning from an unskilled model leads to improved performance compared to individual learning only when the model’s outcome is observed. • Participants adapt imitation to the observed model’s skill and thus do not imitate suboptimal behavior. • RL-modeling shows that adaption of learning was driven by an increase of imitation while observing a skilled model rather than a decrease while observing an unskilled model