Sign-tracking is a form of autoshaping where animals develop conditioned responding directed toward stimuli predictive of an outcome even though the outcome is not contingent on the animal's behavior. Sign-tracking behaviors are thought to arise out of the attribution of incentive salience (i.e., motivational value) to reward-predictive cues. It…

Drug-paired cues acquire powerful motivational properties, but only lead to active drug-seeking behavior if they are potent enough to overwhelm the cognitive control processes that serve to suppress such urges. Studies using the Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task have shown that rats pretreated with cocaine or amphetamine exhibit…

In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), functional behaviors such as checking that a door is locked become dysfunctional, maladaptive, and debilitating. However, it is currently unknown how aversive and appetitive motivations interact to produce functional and dysfunctional behavior in OCD. Here we show a double dissociation in the effects of…

When discrete localizable stimuli are used during appetitive Pavlovian conditioning, "sign-tracking" and "goal-tracking" responses emerge. Sign-tracking is observed when conditioned responding is directed toward the CS, whereas goal-tracking manifests as responding directed to the site of expected reward delivery. These…

While knowing what to expect is important, it is equally important to know when to expect it and to respond accordingly. This is apparent even in simple Pavlovian training situations in which animals learn to respond more strongly closer to reward delivery. Here we report that the nucleus accumbens core, an area well-positioned to represent…

Previous studies have examined the maturation of learning and memory abilities during early stages of development. By comparison, much less is known about the ontogeny of learning and memory during later stages of development, including adolescence. In Experiment 1, we tested the ability of adolescent and adult rats to learn a Pavlovian negative…

Sign- and goal-tracking are differentially associated with drug abuse-related behavior. Recently, it has been hypothesized that sign- and goal-tracking behavior are mediated by different neurobehavioral valuation systems, including differential incentive salience attribution. Herein, we used different conditioned stimuli to preferentially elicit…

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays a role in hedonic reactivity to taste stimuli. Learning can alter the hedonic valence of a given stimulus, and it remains unclear how the NAc encodes this shift. The present study examined whether the population response of NAc neurons to a taste stimulus is plastic using a conditioned taste aversion (CTA)…

Study was designed to investigate the effects of signalled non-contingent reward on the operant behaviour of human subjects. (Authors)

Seventy-two sixth graders, stratified on the basis of sex and two levels of IQ (high and low) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: (1) Group I (success only); (2) Group II (failure only); and (3) Group III (success and failure). These subjects (Ss) were used to investigate the effects of verbally controlled success and failure…

Experimental modification of destructive and assaultive sibling interaction was carried out within the home environment. Two brothers (6 and 3 years old) were treated through token positive reinforcement techniques in an effort to improve their behavior towards each other. A "time out" from reinforcement procedures involved an isolation period for…

Research supported in whole by Public Health Service Grant HD-00908 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

This conference report consists of two presented papers and a selected bibliography. The paper by Joan Gussow, "Behavioral Management and Educational Goals," is concerned with operant conditioning as a theory of learning and an instructional method. Basing their methods on the work of B.F. Skinner, educators who are proponents of this…

Development of preference found to be related to frequency of association of rewards with a critical stimulus. This article is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University by the first author. (MH)