ArticleBehavioural brain research2016
Rats that sign-track are resistant to Pavlovian but not instrumental extinction.
Article in Behavioural brain research, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Genetic characterization of outbred Sprague Dawley rats and utility for genome-wide association studies.PLoS genetics · 2022Pooled it
- Combined maternal separation and limited bedding-nesting increase goal tracking, delay discounting, and impulsive action, and moderate sign-tracking-perseverance associations in male rats.BMC neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- The effects of reward uncertainty and alcohol intoxication on human sign- and goal-tracking.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Beyond dopamine: Broader neuromodulatory contributions in sign- and goal-tracking.Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Reduced Pavlovian Value Updating Alters Decision-Making in Sign-Trackers.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Motivation, attention, and uncertainty: insights from animal and human research and implications for addiction.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Sign- vs. goal-tracking is associated with greater adiposity and altered functional connectivity in response to a naturalistic food paradigm.Physiology & behavior · 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
- Role of nucleus accumbens D1-type medium spiny neurons in the expression and extinction of sign-tracking.Behavioural brain research · 2024Article
- Effects of predictive and incentive value manipulation on sign- and goal-tracking behavior.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Article
- Article
- Nucleus accumbens core acetylcholine receptors modulate the balance of flexible and inflexible cue-directed motivation.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- COPhysiology & behavior · 2023Article
- Reward-Mediated, Model-Free Reinforcement-Learning Mechanisms in Pavlovian and Instrumental Tasks Are Related.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- A mechanical task for measuring sign- and goal-tracking in humans: A proof-of-concept study.Behavioural brain research · 2023Article
- Acute sensitization of the P3 event-related potential response to beverage images and the risk for alcohol use disorder.Addiction neuroscience · 2022Article
- Sign Tracking in an Enriched Environment: A Potential Ecologically Relevant Animal Model of Adaptive Behavior Change.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Quantifying the instrumental and noninstrumental underpinnings of Pavlovian responding with the Price equation.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2022Review
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Individuals vary in the extent to which they attribute incentive salience to a discrete cue (conditioned stimulus; CS) that predicts reward delivery (unconditioned stimulus; US), which results in some individuals approaching and interacting with the CS (sign-trackers; STs) more than others (goal-trackers; GTs). Here we asked how periods of non-reinforcement influence conditioned responding in STs vs. GTs, in both Pavlovian and instrumental tasks. After classifying rats as STs or GTs by pairing a retractable lever (the CS) with the delivery of a food pellet (US), we introduced periods of non-reinforcement, first by simply withholding the US (i.e., extinction training; experiment 1), then by signaling alternating periods of reward (R) and non-reward (NR) within the same session (experiments 2 and 3). We also examined how alternating R and NR periods influenced instrumental responding for food (experiment 4). STs and GTs did not differ in their ability to discriminate between R and NR periods in the instrumental task. However, in Pavlovian settings STs and GTs responded to periods of non-reward very differently. Relative to STs, GTs very rapidly modified their behavior in response to periods of non-reward, showing much faster extinction and better and faster discrimination between R and NR conditions. These results highlight differences between Pavlovian and instrumental extinction learning, and suggest that if a Pavlovian CS is strongly attributed with incentive salience, as in STs, it may continue to bias attention toward it, and to facilitate persistent and relatively inflexible responding, even when it is no longer followed by reward.
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