ArticleLearning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.)2020
Sign-tracking behavior is sensitive to outcome devaluation in a devaluation context-dependent manner: implications for analyzing habitual behavior.
Article in Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Galactic cosmic radiation produces sex-specific, circuit-selective cognitive vulnerability: countermeasure trade-offs revealed by multi-domain assessment.Research square · 2026Article
- Phasic dopamine encodes persistent attraction to reward cues.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 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
- Outcome devaluation as a method for identifying goal-directed behaviors in rats.Nature protocols · 2025Review
- Article
- Dorsomedial Striatum CB1R signaling is required for Pavlovian outcome devaluation in male Long Evans rats and reduces inhibitory synaptic transmission in both sexes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Understanding the shift to compulsion in addiction: insights from personality traits, social factors, and neurobiology.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- The temporal structure of goal-directed and habitual operant behavior.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2024Article
- The role of sex on sign-tracking acquisition and outcome devaluation sensitivity in Long Evans rats.Behavioural brain research · 2023Article
- 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
- 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
- Flexible control of Pavlovian-instrumental transfer based on expected reward value.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2023Article
- Attentional capture by signals of reward persists following outcome devaluation.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- Context, attention, and the switch between habit and goal-direction in behavior.Learning & behavior · 2021Review
- Effect of context on the instrumental reinforcer devaluation effect produced by taste-aversion learning.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2021Article
- Spatially restricted inhibition of cholinergic interneurons in the dorsolateral striatum encourages behavioral exploration.The European journal of neuroscience · 2021Article
- Reinforcer predictability and stimulus salience promote discriminated habit learning.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2021Article
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Motivationally attractive cues can draw in behavior in a phenomenon termed incentive salience. Incentive cue attraction is an important model for animal models of drug seeking and relapse. One question of interest is the extent to which the pursuit of motivationally attractive cues is related to the value of the paired outcome or can become unrelated and habitual. We studied this question using a sign-tracking (ST) paradigm in rats, in which a lever stimulus preceding food reward comes to elicit conditioned lever-interaction behavior. We asked whether reinforcer devaluation by means of conditioned taste aversion, a classic test of habitual behavior, can modify ST to incentive cues, and whether this depends upon the manner in which reinforcer devaluation takes place. In contrast to several recent reports, we conclude that ST is indeed sensitive to reinforcer devaluation. However, this effect depends critically upon the congruence between the context in which taste aversion is learned and the context in which it is tested. When the taste aversion successfully transfers to the testing context, outcome value strongly influences ST behavior, both when the outcome is withheld (in extinction) and when animals can learn from outcome feedback (reacquisition). When taste aversion does not transfer to the testing context, ST remains high. In total, the extent to which ST persists after outcome devaluation is closely related to the extent to which that outcome is truly devalued in the task context. We believe this effect of context on devaluation can reconcile contradictory findings about the flexibility/inflexibility of ST. We discuss this literature and relate our findings to the study of habits generally.
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