Dawn of the dread: threatening cinematic virtual reality environments enhance general but not specific pavlovian-instrumental transfer.

Introduction: Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) exemplifies how Pavlovian-motivational influences modulate goal-directed behavior, yielding outcome-specific (specific PIT) and general (general PIT) transfer. General PIT is commonly interpreted as outcome-general invigoration and is sensitive to stress. However, human PIT research typically uses visual, appetitive procedures, whereas rodent PIT research often uses auditory cues, limiting translation. We tested whether cue modality, along with additional factors such as immersive threat contexts, modulates PIT, and whether virtual reality (VR) enhances general transfer. Methods: Across three experiments ( Results: Robust specific ( Discussion: Across experiments, general PIT was larger in the VR studies than in the 2D study, whereas specific PIT remained stable; however, VR was not manipulated independently of reinforcement context and other procedural differences, precluding strong causal inference about its effect on general PIT. Despite this, human PIT appeared robust across cue modality and reinforcement context, and there was an indication that VR immersion may selectively amplify general invigoration while sparing specific PIT across all three experiments, albeit with a small effect (pseudo-