Affect-driven impulsivity impairs human action control and selection, as measured through Pavlovian instrumental transfer and outcome devaluation
Metadata
Show full item recordMateria
Goal-directed action Pavlovian instrumental transfer
Date
2019-11-07Referencia bibliográfica
Hinojosa-Aguayo, I. & González, F. (2020). Affect-driven impulsivity impairs human action control and selection, as measured through Pavlovian instrumental transfer and outcome devaluation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73 (4), 537–554. First Published November 7, 2019.
Sponsorship
This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, and FEDER funds (grants PSI2015-64345-R; PGC2018-096438-B-I00).Abstract
Two experiments were designed to study the role of emotional impulsiveness in action control and selection, involving healthy young women participants. In Experiment 1 the effects of both outcome devaluation and Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) were assessed on instrumental responding. In Experiment 2, we further explored the effect of outcome devaluation on outcome-specific PIT. The role of emotional impulsivity, specifically negative urgency (NU), was also evaluated in both experiments using a self-reported measure (UPPS-P scale, Spanish short version). Experiment 1 showed both outcome devaluation and outcome-specific PIT effects, which were positively inter-correlated and negatively correlated with scores in NU. Experiment 2 found an effect of outcome devaluation on outcome-specific PIT, which was negatively correlated with scores on NU. These results highlight the relevance of considering individual differences in affect-driven impulsivity, specifically NU, when addressing failures in action control and selection (proneness to habit). Moreover, these findings suggest that, at least with the procedure used in these experiments, outcome-specific PIT may be based on a goal-directed process that is under the participant’s control.