Individual differences in incentive salience attribution are not related to suboptimal choice in rats

López, P. del Valle; Alba, Rodrigo; Orduña, Vladimir

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2017.12.028

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…It is important to emphasize that this result was obtained despite the use of discriminative stimuli with higher incentive salience than those employed in other experiments with rats (Cunningham & Shahan, 2019, 2020; Trujano et al, 2016; Trujano & Orduña, 2015). In line with our previous research, we did not find evidence about a relationship between the level of suboptimal choice and the level of sign-tracking behavior to the lever associated with reinforcement (López et al, 2018; López-Tolsa et al, 2020). Our main result adds to the evidence about a null influence of the use of levers on the promotion of suboptimal choice and additionally is the first evidence about the absence of interaction between the terminal-links length and the use of levers as discriminative stimuli in the promotion of suboptimal choice by rats.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…For testing this hypothesis, they employed levers as discriminative stimuli (which generate sign-tracking behavior and therefore, have higher incentive salience than lights [Beckmann & Chow, 2015]) and reported that suboptimal choice emerged under these circumstances. Despite this demonstration, later work did not replicate this result and rats were optimal despite the use of levers as discriminative stimuli López et al, 2018;Martínez et al, 2017;Orduña & Alba, 2019; these results indicate that the incentive salience of the discriminative stimuli is not sufficient to generate suboptimal choice in rats.…”

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confidence: 84%

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Rats maintain optimal choice when facing long terminal links in a “suboptimal choice” procedure.

Alba¹,

González-Torres²,

Orduña³

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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It has been recently reported that rats' optimal behavior in the "suboptimal choice" procedure is eliminated when the duration of the terminal links is increased to 30 s or more (Cunningham & Shahan, 2019). The main goal of the present study is to analyze the generality of such results, via a procedure that has been extensively used in the study of rats' performance in this task. In Experiment 1, nine rats were exposed to a procedure that presented levers as discriminative stimuli, varying the duration of their presentation from 10 s to 50 s across conditions. The results showed that rats preferred the optimal alternative in all conditions. To further analyze the relationship between rats' preferences and the duration of the terminal links, in Experiment 2 we contrasted the performance of two groups that differed in the configuration of the stimuli associated to the terminal links. For one of them, the stimuli were the same as in the Cunningham and Shahan's ( 2019) experiment (Tone þ Light); for the other, the stimulus was light only. The results show that rats were suboptimal in the former group, and optimal in the latter. We discuss our results in terms of the prevalence of rats' optimal behavior when confronted with the manipulation of different variables and the necessity of improving the knowledge about the relationship between optimal/suboptimal choice and the salience of the discriminative stimuli.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

mentioning

confidence: 84%

Rats maintain optimal choice when facing long terminal links in a “suboptimal choice” procedure.

Alba¹,

González-Torres²,

Orduña³

2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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“…However, numerous experiments since Chow et al (2017) have failed to find acquisition of suboptimal choice in rats when lever-insertions were used as TL stimuli (e.g., Alba et al, 2018; Martínez et al, 2017). Further, López et al (2018) explored the possibility that rats that are more likely to assign incentive salience to food-predictive stimuli, as measured by sign-tracking, are more likely to engage in suboptimal choice. Indeed, there is a growing literature showing that individual differences in the tendency to sign-track food-predictive stimuli correlates with a variety of maladaptive behaviors in rats (see Flagel et al, 2009 for review).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it is important to note that Chow et al (2017) did not find acquisition of suboptimal choice in rats. Numerous experiments have subsequently failed to find acquisition of suboptimal choice in rats when levers were used as TL stimuli (Alba, Rodríguez, Martínez, & Orduña, 2018; López, Alba, & Orduña, 2018; Martínez et al, 2017). Thus, the current body of evidence suggests that rats do not engage in suboptimal choice even when TL stimuli acquire incentive salience and elicit sign-tracking (as when levers are used for TL stimuli).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rats engage in suboptimal choice when the delay to food is sufficiently long.

Cunningham¹,

Shahan²

2019

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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Numerous examples in the decision-making literature demonstrate that animals sometimes make choices that are not in their long-term best interest. One particular example finds pigeons preferring a lowprobability alternative in lieu of a high-probability alternative, referred to as suboptimal choice. Although there is ample evidence that pigeons engage in such suboptimal choice, there is currently weak evidence (at best) that rats also do so. Cunningham and Shahan's (2018) temporal information-theoretic model suggests that suboptimal choice in pigeons arises when (1) the low-probability alternative provides stimuli that convey more temporal information than stimuli associated with the high-probability alternative and (2) when the delay to food is much longer relative to the delay to temporally informative signals at the choice point. The latter condition plays the important role of biasing decision making to be governed by the relative temporal information conveyed by stimuli rather than the relative rate of food delivery. The present experiment explored the possibility that rats will engage in suboptimal choice if the delay to food at the choice point is sufficiently long, as the temporal information-theoretic model suggests. Rats were given a choice between a suboptimal alternative providing food 20% of the time and an optimal alternative providing food 50% of the time. The suboptimal alternative provided stimuli that differentially signaled choice outcomes whereas the optimal alternative did not. The postchoice delay was manipulated across conditions and ranged from 10 s to 50 s. As with previous research, rats did not engage in suboptimal choice when the postchoice delay was 10 s. However, once the delay was at least 30 s, rats engaged in suboptimal choice. These results are consistent with the temporal informationtheoretic model of suboptimal choice and suggest that rats and pigeons likely do not differ in the decision-making processes involved in the suboptimal choice procedure.

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“…Although suboptimal choice is well documented in pigeons, its species-generality was questioned given numerous failed attempts to find suboptimal choice in rats under the same conditions that reliably generate suboptimal choice in pigeons (Alba, Rodríguez, Martínez, & Orduña, 2018; López, Alba, & Orduña, 2018; Martínez, Alba, Rodríguez, & Orduña, 2017; Ojeda, Murphy, & Kacelnik, 2018; Orduña & Alba, 2019; Trujano, López, Rojas-Leguizamón, & Orduña, 2016; Trujano & Orduña, 2015). Nevertheless, Cunningham and Shahan (2019) showed that rats engage in suboptimal choice once the delay to food is sufficiently long.…”

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confidence: 99%

Delays to food-predictive stimuli do not affect suboptimal choice in rats.

Cunningham¹,

Shahan²

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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A variety of animals sometimes engage in a form of maladaptive decision-making characterized by repeatedly choosing an option providing food-predictive stimuli even though they earn less food for doing so. The temporal information-theoretic model suggests that such suboptimal choice depends on competition between the bits of temporal information conveyed by food-predictive stimuli (which encourages suboptimal choice) and the rate of food delivery (which encourages optimal choice). The model assumes that competition between these two sources of control is based on the ratio of the delay to food (D f ) and the delay to food-predictive stimuli (D s ) at the choice point (i.e., D f /D s ). Research with both rats and pigeons suggests that temporal information outcompetes the rate of food delivery, thereby generating suboptimal choice, when the delay to food (D f ) is sufficiently long. Limited data with pigeons, and none with rats, suggests that the rate of food delivery outcompetes temporal information, thereby generating optimal choice, when the delay to food-predictive stimuli (D s ) is sufficiently long. The present experiment sought to clarify whether longer delays to food-predictive stimuli decrease suboptimal choice in rats. We found that while longer delays to food (Df) increased suboptimal choice in rats, longer delays to food-predictive stimuli (D s ) did not decrease suboptimal choice. These results suggest a potential difference between rats and pigeons in the manner in which food-predictive stimuli and food itself compete to control choice. In terms of the temporal information-theoretic model, competition between temporal information and the rate of food delivery in rats appears to be influenced only by the delay to food at the choice point.

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Individual differences in incentive salience attribution are not related to suboptimal choice in rats

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

Rats maintain optimal choice when facing long terminal links in a “suboptimal choice” procedure.

Rats maintain optimal choice when facing long terminal links in a “suboptimal choice” procedure.

Rats engage in suboptimal choice when the delay to food is sufficiently long.

Delays to food-predictive stimuli do not affect suboptimal choice in rats.

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