ArticlePloS one2014
The form of a conditioned stimulus can influence the degree to which it acquires incentive motivational properties.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 47 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- When cues take the wheel: cue-control across alcohol use disorder, binge-eating disorder, gambling disorder, and internet gaming disorder.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
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- Implementations of sign- and goal-tracking behavior in humans: A scoping review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Behavioral microanalyses refine sign-tracking characterization and uncover different response dynamics during omission and extinction learning.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Using sign tracking to experimentally increase self-control in rats.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2024Article
- Ventral pallidum neurons projecting to the ventral tegmental area reinforce but do not invigorate reward-seeking behavior.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Effects of predictive and incentive value manipulation on sign- and goal-tracking behavior.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Article
- A mechanical task for measuring sign- and goal-tracking in humans: A proof-of-concept study.Behavioural brain research · 2023Article
- Reinforcer predictability and stimulus salience promote discriminated habit learning.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2021Article
- Nicotine Enhances Goal-Tracking in Ethanol and Food Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Paradigms.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- The pharmacological stressor yohimbine, but not U50,488, increases responding for conditioned reinforcers paired with ethanol or sucrose.Psychopharmacology · 2020Article
- Mapping sign-tracking and goal-tracking onto human behaviors.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Review
- Rat Paraventricular Neurons Encode Predictive and Incentive Information of Reward Cues.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Occasion setters attain incentive motivational value: implications for contextual influences on reward-seeking.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2019Article
- Differential involvement of dopamine receptor subtypes in the acquisition of Pavlovian sign-tracking and goal-tracking responses.Psychopharmacology · 2019Article
- Nicotine Produces a High-Approach, Low-Avoidance Phenotype in Response to Alcohol-Associated Cues in Male Rats.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2019Article
- Addiction vulnerability trait impacts complex movement control: Evidence from sign-trackers.Behavioural brain research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
There is considerable individual variation in the extent to which food- and drug-associated cues (conditioned stimuli, CSs) acquire incentive salience, as indicated by whether they elicit approach towards them, and/or act as conditioned reinforcers. Here we asked whether this variation is influenced by properties of the CS itself. In rats, we assessed both the attractiveness and conditioned reinforcing properties of two CSs: a manipulable lever CS versus an auditory (tone) CS. There was considerable individual variation in the extent to which a lever CS acquired incentive motivational properties, as indicated by whether it became attractive (evoked a sign-tracking or goal-tracking conditioned response) or acted as a conditioned reinforcer. However, with a tone CS all rats learned a goal-tracking response, and the tone CS was an equally effective conditioned reinforcer in sign-trackers and goal-trackers. Even when presented in compound (a lever-tone CS), the two elements of the compound differentially acquired motivational properties. In contrast, amphetamine and stress potentiated the conditioned reinforcing properties of both visual and auditory CSs similarly in rats that primarily sign-tracked or goal-tracked. We conclude that variation in the to the ability of CSs to acquire incentive salience, and thus their ability to act as incentive stimuli capable of motivating behavior, is determined in part by properties of the CS itself.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.