Jonathan Morrow, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, will present "Measurement of Individual Differences in Cue-Motivated Behavior" at this week's Cognitive Science Seminar Series.

ABSTRACT

Sign-tracking is a form of Pavlovian conditioned approach to reward-associated cues. Sign-tracking is often contrasted with goal-tracking, which is cue-triggered approach directed toward the location of reward delivery. Interest in sign-tracking has increased in recent years because individual variation in sign-tracking has been shown to predict addiction-like behaviors in animals. Though sign-tracking has been observed in a wide variety of species, including rodents, primates, fish, cephalopods, and insects, there have been very few attempts to document sign-tracking in humans. We directly translated a rat task for human subjects, using a retractable lever as a conditioned stimulus that predicts reward delivery into a different physical location (reward magazine). Physical contacts as well as eye-gaze directed toward the lever or magazine were recorded as outcome measures. Subjects also completed questionnaire-based measurements of trait impulsivity. We hope to demonstrate that sign- and goal-tracking behavior can be measured in humans. Furthermore, we will test whether inter-individual variation in sign- and goal-tracking behavior correlates with motor impulsivity, which is a known risk factor for addiction.