Evidence of a goal-directed process in human Pavlovian-instrumental transfer.

Abstract

Cues that signal rewards can motivate reward-seeking behaviors, even for outcomes that are not currently desired. Three experiments examined this phenomenon, using an outcome-selective Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT) design and an outcome devaluation procedure. In Experiment 1, participants learned to perform one response to earn crisps points and another response to earn popcorn points. One outcome was then devalued by adulterating it to make it taste unpleasant. On test, overall response choice was biased toward the outcome that had not been devalued, indicating goal-directed control. Stimuli that signaled crisps and popcorn also biased instrumental response choice toward their respective outcomes (a PIT effect). Most importantly, the strength of this bias was not influenced by the devaluation manipulation. In contrast, Experiment 2 demonstrated that when stimuli signaled equal probability of the two outcomes, cue-elicited response choice was sensitive to the devaluation manipulation. Experiment 3 confirmed this conclusion by demonstrating a selective avoidance of the cued, devalued outcome. Together, these data support a goal-directed model of PIT in which expected outcome probability and value make independent contributions to response choice. (PsycINFO Database Record

Development of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task to examine the effects of reward-predicting cues on behavioral activation in young adults

“…The current study evaluated the effects of reward-predicting cues on behavior, using a PIT task in which classical conditioning trials were optimized for fMRI. Our results are consistent with a growing number of studies demonstrating PIT effects in humans (Seabrooke et al, 2017;Sommer et al, 2017b;Verhoeven, Watson and de Wit, 2018;Vogel et al, 2018) and provide additional evidence for behavioral invigoration in presence of a classically conditioned stimulus. The current PIT paradigm was developed to allow Pavlovian conditioning to be completed in an MRI scanner.…”

“…A little more than half of the studies examined appetitive conditioning. Many of these studies have focused on examining addictive behavior, e.g., to food (Pool et al, 2015;Quail, Laurent and Balleine, 2017;Seabrooke et al, 2017;van Steenbergen et al, 2017), to nicotine (Hogarth, 2012;Hogarth, Maynard and Munafò, 2015;Manglani et al, 2017) and to alcohol (Martinovic et al, 2014;Garbusow et al, 2016;Hardy et al, 2017;Sommer et al, 2017a). Other studies have used PIT paradigms to evaluate how stress and depressed mood affect motivation (Huys et al, 2016;Quail, Laurent and Balleine, 2017), or to study the neural correlates of the transfer effects in non-disordered populations (Paredes-Olay et al, 2002;Talmi et al, 2008a;Allman et al, 2010;Geurts et al, 2013;Hebart and Gläscher, 2015;Sebold et al, 2016).…”

Intact goal‐directed control in treatment‐seeking drug users indexed by outcome‐devaluation and Pavlovian to instrumental transfer: critique of habit theory

“…Future studies should conduct the full design to negate this concern. Second, the specific PIT effect can be explained by a number of theoretical models (Cartoni et al ., ), and may not tap goal‐directed control, although there are good grounds to think it does (Seabrooke et al ., ). Interestingly, general PIT procedures have shown that the presentation of drug or natural reward cues can produce a general excitation of instrumental responding, as well as a specific increase in responding for the signalled outcome.…”

“…Finally, in the transfer test, the Pavlovian stimuli are presented while the two instrumental responses are available, and it is typically found that each stimulus selectively augments choice of the response that earns the outcome signalled by the stimulus. This specific PIT effect is arguably driven by each stimulus retrieving an expectation that the corresponding response–outcome contingency has a greater probability of being effective, which drives goal‐directed choice of that response (Colwill & Rescorla, ; Rescorla, ; Seabrooke et al ., ; Hardy et al ., ; Seabrooke et al ., ), although a range of theoretical accounts of specific PIT have been offered (Cartoni et al ., ). In animals, this specific PIT effect can be abolished by chronic amphetamine exposure (Shiflett, ), and perhaps by chronic alcohol exposure (Glasner et al ., ), and alcohol paired cues exert only general excitatory effects on both responses in the specific PIT test, whereas natural reward cues exert specific PIT effects (Glasner et al ., ; Corbit et al ., ).…”

Pavlovian‐to‐instrumental transfer in Anorexia Nervosa: A pilot study on conditioned learning and instrumental responding to low‐ and high‐calorie food stimuli

“…Consequently, as the magnitude of the “vegetable‐PIT” effect is calculated by subtracting choice of the vegetable‐related key after presentation of the grey square from choice after presentation of the CS V , the “vegetable‐PIT” effect decreased with increasing eating disorder‐related psychopathology as indicated by regression analysis. Seabrooke and colleagues (Seabrooke, Le Pelley, Hogarth & Mitchell, ) have recently pointed out this caveat of the interpretation of the magnitude of the PIT effect due to its calculation on difference scores. Consequently, Seabrooke et al () suggested a modified PIT paradigm with overall response choice about 50% which would be also interesting for future studies on reward processes in AN.…”