How does Go/No-Go training lead to food devaluation? Separating the effects of motor inhibition and response valence

ABSTRACT

Palatable, unhealthy food stimuli can be devalued via Go/No-Go (GNG) training that consistently pairs such stimuli with motor inhibition. However, it remains unclear whether this devaluation is caused via learned associations with motor inhibition or via inferential learning based on the valence of emitted motor responses. The present research disentangles the effects of motor assignment and response valence in GNG training through task instructions. In two studies, chocolate stimuli were consistently paired with motor inhibition (“no-go”) or with motor excitation (“go”). Task instructions indicated that no-go responses were negatively valenced (“do not take”) and that go responses were positively valenced (“take”), or identified no-go responses as positively valenced (“keep”) and go as negatively valenced (“throw away”). The results show an effect of response valence on chocolate evaluations, but no effect of motor assignment: Chocolate stimuli were consistently devalued following pairings with a negatively valenced response, regardless of whether this response entailed motor inhibition or excitation. These findings align best with an inferential account of GNG training, suggesting that devaluation effects critically depend on inferential processes regarding motor response valence. GNG training procedures may, therefore, be optimised by disambiguating the valence of go and no-go motor responses prior to training.

KEYWORDS:

• Go/No-Go training
• motor inhibition
• response valence
• food evaluations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

All data are available at https://doi.org/10.34894/UYSS04.

Notes

1 Filler stimuli were also presented during the picture rating task. However, these ratings were not further analysed as fillers were not consistently paired with positive or negative response valence or with motor excitation versus motor inhibition (i.e., go versus no-go).

2 Fourteen participants did not fill out the Restraint Scale. Missing data for the total score on the Restraint Scale were imputed with the sample mean. When the analyses were performed with list wise deletion (n = 87), the pattern of results remained the same.