Initial uncertainty in Pavlovian reward prediction persistently elevates incentive salience and extends sign-tracking to normally unattractive cues

Abstract

Uncertainty is a component of many gambling games and may play a role in incentive motivation and cue attraction. Uncertainty can increase the attractiveness for predictors of reward in the Pavlovian procedure of autoshaping, visible as enhanced sign-tracking (or approach and nibbles) by rats of a metal lever whose sudden appearance acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS+) to predict sucrose pellets as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Here we examined how reward uncertainty might enhance incentive salience as sign-tracking both in intensity and by broadening the range of attractive CS+s. We also examined whether initially-induced uncertainty enhancements of CS+ attraction can endure beyond uncertainty itself, and persist even when Pavlovian prediction becomes 100% certain. Our results show that uncertainty can broaden incentive salience attribution to make CS cues attractive that would otherwise not be (either because they are too distal from reward or too risky to normally attract sign-tracking). In addition, uncertainty enhancement of CS+ incentive salience, once induced by initial exposure, persisted even when Pavlovian CS-UCS correlations later rose toward 100% certainty in prediction. Persistence suggests an enduring incentive motivation enhancement potentially relevant to gambling, which in some ways resembles incentive-sensitization. Higher motivation to uncertain CS+s leads to more potent attraction to these cues when they predict the delivery of uncertain rewards. In humans, those cues might possibly include the sights and sounds associated with gambling, which contribute a major component of the play immersion experienced by problematic gamblers.

Relative reward effects on operant behavior: Incentive contrast, induction and variety effects

“…runway running speed) has been shown to be the most sensitive to outcome shifts (Mellgren, 1971; Leszczuk and Flaherty, 2000). The power of cues to guide influences of outcome properties most likely relies on the form, associative strength and embedded context of the cue (Meyer et al, 2014; Robinson et al, 2014; Robinson et al, 2014). Influence of cues also relies upon subject variables including homeostatic affective state and other intrinsic variables (Porter et al, 1968; Stidham et al, 1987).…”

Roles of “Wanting” and “Liking” in Motivating Behavior: Gambling, Food, and Drug Addictions

“…Furthermore, cues that predict reward with a large degree of uncertainty are also more likely to acquire incentive salience. For example, distal cues that are on the periphery of our attention are typically ignored under certain and predictable reward conditions, but when reward conditions are unpredictable, these cues attract more attention (Robinson et al 2014a). In fact the degree of incentive enhancement that uncertainty imparts to reward-related cues is similar to that produced by psychomotor sensitization through repeated amphetamine administration (Robinson et al 2015a).…”

Healing Dysfunctional Identity: Bridging Mind-Body Intervention to Brain Systems

“…One of the most influential theories related to various urge-like reactions is the Incentive Salience Sensitization Theory [60], developed in the science of drug addiction [61] and behavioral addictions such as gambling [62]. The incentive salience refers to an object acquiring emotional and/or motivational values (appetitive or aversive) and thus becoming a salient object.…”