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How does not responding to appetitive stimuli cause devaluation: Evaluative conditioning or response inhibition?
Zhang Chen1, Harm Veling1, Ap Dijksterhuis1
1Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University.
Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
|October 14, 2016
Summary
Not responding to appealing stimuli, like food, can make them less desirable. This devaluation effect occurs through response inhibition, especially when opportunities to respond are rare.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Understanding how withholding responses influences stimulus evaluation is crucial.
- Previous research has not fully clarified the mechanisms behind response inhibition and devaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how refraining from responding to appetitive stimuli leads to their devaluation.
- To explore the role of response inhibition in this devaluation process.
Main Methods:
- A go/no-go task was used, presenting appetitive stimuli with cues to respond (go) or not respond (no-go).
- Evaluations of no-go stimuli were compared to go and untrained stimuli.
- Experiments manipulated the frequency of no-go trials and stimulus type (appetitive vs. neutral).
Main Results:
- Not responding to appetitive stimuli caused their devaluation, irrespective of explicit no-go cues.
- Devaluation was contingent on the rarity of no-go trials; it diminished with frequent no-go trials.
- Not responding to neutral stimuli did not result in devaluation.
Conclusions:
- Devaluation of appetitive stimuli through non-response is primarily driven by response inhibition.
- The findings resolve inconsistencies in the literature and offer theoretical insights into response-evaluation relationships.
- This research can inform the development of behavioral interventions targeting appetitive stimulus responses.
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