Individual differences in working memory capacity and cue-guided behavior in humans

Abstract

Information gathered via Pavlovian and Instrumental learning can be integrated to guide behavior, in a phenomenon experimentally known as Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT). In particular, in appetitive PIT, a reward-associated cue is able to enhance the instrumental response previously associated with the same (outcome-specific PIT), or a similar (general PIT), reward. The PIT effect is increasingly investigated for its numerous implications in clinical contexts as well as daily life situations. Nevertheless, the precise mechanism behind it is not yet clear. The relation between the PIT effect and high-level cognitive abilities - like working memory - is still unknown, but potentially relevant to unveil its functioning. The present study aims to examine the precise relationship between individual differences in working memory and the two forms of PIT effect, namely outcome-specific and general. For this purpose, 100 participants underwent a classical PIT paradigm. Results showed a relationship between individual working memory and outcome-specific PIT, but not general PIT. Importantly, the role of working memory was not related to the acquisition of the learning contingencies, but rather linked to an imbalance between congruent and incongruent choices. The results are discussed in terms of the adaptive and maladaptive implications for human behavior.

Subliminal determinants of cue-guided choice

“…absence of transfer. A higher transfer index (indicating a higher number of congruent than incongruent responses) was reported during seen trials (t (14) = 4.49; p = 0.001; 95% CI [0.33, 0.94]; BF 10 = 69.67) but not during unseen trials (t (14) = − 0.09; p = 0.9; 95% CI [− 0.72, 0.66]; BF 10 = 0.32) was reported (Fig. 4).…”

“…Instrumental training Evidence from the PIT literature shows behavioral [13][14][15]19 and neural [16][17][18][20][21][22] dissociations between outcomespecific and general transfer. While general transfer is more dependent on the motivational properties of the Pavlovian cue, outcome-specific transfer is more related to the sensory-specific properties of the cue 23 .…”

“…To this aim, two experiments compared the effect on choice of subliminal and supraliminal presentation of reward-associated cues, during the transfer phase of a Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer (PIT) task. The PIT task mirrored the structure used in previous studies [13][14][15][16][17][18] and included three phases. First, during instrumental training the participants learned different response-outcome associations.…”

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

“…General behavioral invigoration of classically conditioned cues appears more difficult to demonstrate in humans. Among appetitive PIT studies examining the differential effects of outcome-specific vs. general behavioral activation, we identified only six reporting general transfer effects (Prevost et al, 2012;Watson et al, 2014;Hebart and Gläscher, 2015;Quail et al, 2017b;Alarcón and Bonardi, 2019;Garofalo et al, 2019). A small number of other human PIT studies used designs with a single excitatory cue, and reported transfer effects (Talmi et al, 2008;Lovibond and Colagiuri, 2013;Colagiuri and Lovibond, 2015;Pool et al, 2015).…”

Instrumental and Pavlovian Mechanisms in Alcohol Use Disorder

“…PIT effects in humans have been shown to be insensitive to outcome-devaluation [253] (although see satiety effects in PIT-related NAcc activation in animals [254]), but sensitive to extinction, although this was less effective for reducing PIT in a different context [255]. Moreover, reduced working memory capacity has been reported to attenuate outcome-specific but not general PIT [256].…”