Goal-directed recruitment of Pavlovian biases through selective visual attention.

Algermissen J., den Ouden HEM.

Prospective outcomes bias behavior in a "Pavlovian" manner: Reward prospect invigorates action, while punishment prospect suppresses it. Theories have posited Pavlovian biases as global action "priors" in unfamiliar or uncontrollable environments. However, this account fails to explain the strength of these biases-causing frequent action slips-even in well-known environments. We propose that Pavlovian control is additionally useful if flexibly recruited by instrumental control. Specifically, instrumental action plans might shape selective attention to reward/punishment information and thus the input to Pavlovian control. In two eye-tracking samples (N = 35/64), we observed that Go/NoGo action plans influenced when and for how long participants attended to reward/punishment information, which in turn biased their responses in a Pavlovian manner. Participants with stronger attentional effects showed higher performance. Thus, humans appear to align Pavlovian control with their instrumental action plans, extending its role beyond action defaults to a powerful tool ensuring robust action execution. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

DOI

10.1037/xge0001425

Type

Journal article

Publication Date

2023-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Volume

152

Pages

2941 - 2956

Total pages

15

Keywords

Humans, Goals, Prospective Studies, Motivation, Reward, Bias

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