An Adaptation of Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) Methodology to Examine the Energizing Effects of Reward-Predicting Cues on Behavior in Young Adults

Abstract

There is growing recognition that much of human behavior is governed by the presence of classically conditioned cues. The Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) paradigm offers a way to measure the effects of classically conditioned stimuli on behavior. In the current study, a novel behavioral task, an adaptation of the PIT framework, was developed for use in conjunction with an fMRI classical conditioning task. Twenty-four healthy young adults completed (1) instrumental training, (2) Pavlovian conditioning, and (3) a Transfer test. During instrumental training, participants learned to apply force to a handgrip to win money from slot machines pictured on a computer screen. During Pavlovian conditioning, slot machines appeared with one of two abstract symbols (cues), one symbol was predictive of monetary reward. During the Transfer test, participants again applied force to a handgrip to win money. This time, the slot machines were presented with the Pavlovian cues, but with the outcomes hidden. The results indicated increased effort on the instrumental task, i.e., higher response frequency and greater force, in the presence of the reward-predicting cue. Our findings add to the growing number of studies demonstrating PIT effects in humans. This new paradigm is effective in measuring the effects of a conditioned stimulus on behavioral activation.

Motor response vigour and visual fixation patterns reflect subjective valuation during intertemporal choice

“…Further, comparing the results for conflict and subjective value differences and total value, respectively, it appears that total value was most strongly associated with grip force amplitude and number of fixation shifts. These effects share some similarity with other modulatory effects of pavlovian cues, such as pavlovian instrumental transfer, where conditioned stimuli affect the vigour with PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY which an action is executed [47,48]. However, the present effects of value sum on motor response vigour were not instrumental, as grip force was decoupled from outcome.…”

Pavlovian bias instigates suboptimal choices

“…In fact, it's known that Pavlovian bias allows fast, albeit inflexible responding (Boureau et al, 2015;Dayan et al, 2006;Huys et al, 2012). The ability to downregulate Pavlovian bias (or upregulate, when such bias is adaptive) could be relevant to prevent diseases characterized by aberrant biases, such as addiction (Garbusow et al, 2014;Sommer et al, 2017), eating disorders (Watson et al, 2014(Watson et al, , 2016, or gambling (da Costa et al, 2020;Genauck et al, 2021). This raises the possibility that our procedure, as well as a future broader comprehension of the neural mechanisms involved in such Pavlovian bias, might be useful to identify people who are predisposed toward such pathologies, thus helping in prevention and possibly in therapeutic interventions to suppress effects of environmental cues on, for example, drug-seeking behaviour.…”

Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in intertemporal choice

“…These approaches allow one to test, for instance, whether Pavlovian cues signaling immediate rewards selectively increase go-responding or preference toward immediate rewards or not, and whether Pavlovian cues signaling delayed rewards may also increase go-responding or preference toward delayed rewards. Outcome-specific PIT effects have been more frequently reported compared to outcome-general PIT effects (da Costa et al, 2020). Moreover, such effects may more closely resemble daily-life situations in which a cue signaling an immediate reward (e.g., a fast-food sign) biases one toward intertemporally impatient behavior (e.g., eating a snack).…”