Editing Learned helplessness (section)

===Later experiments===
Later experiments have served to confirm the depressive effect of feeling a lack of control over an aversive stimulus. For example, in one experiment, humans performed mental tasks in the presence of distracting noise. Those who could use a switch to turn off the noise performed better than those who could not turn off the noise. Simply being aware of this option was enough to substantially counteract the noise effect.<ref name="Learned helplessness in man">{{cite journal | vauthors = Hiroto DS, Seligman ME | year = 1975 | title = Generality of learned helplessness in man | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 31 | issue = 2| pages = 311–27 | doi=10.1037/h0076270}}</ref> In 2011, an animal study<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1038/npre.2011.6267.1 | title=Control over stress induces plasticity of individual prefrontal cortical neurons: A conductance-based neural simulation| journal=Nature Precedings| year=2011| vauthors = Varela J, Wang J, Varnell A, Cooper D | doi-access=free| arxiv=1204.1094}}</ref> found that animals with control over stressful stimuli exhibited changes in the excitability of certain neurons in the prefrontal cortex.  Animals that lacked control failed to exhibit this neural effect and showed signs consistent with learned helplessness and [[social anxiety]]. A 1992 study<ref>{{Cite journal | title =  Learned helplessness in chess players: The importance of task similarity and the role of skill|journal =  Psychological Research | year = 1992| author = Gobet, F. |volume = 54 |issue = 1 |pages = 38–43 |doi = 10.1007/BF01359222 |pmid = 1603887 |url = http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/844 }}</ref> showed that the non-contingency between responses and outcomes when solving chess problems leads to a state of learned helplessness with chess players ranging from weak amateurs to professional players. The effects were proportional to the degree of similarity between the treatment and the task used in the post-test.