The effect of extinction on Pavlovian to instrumental transfer in smokers

A Pavlovian to instrumental transfer (PIT) task was utilized to investigate the influence of Pavlovian cues on an instrumental behaviour in daily and non-daily smokers. Participants were trained on four arbitrary Pavlovian cues, of which two predicted cigarette and two predicted chocolate outcomes. Subsequently one chocolate and one cigarette cue were extinguished. Participants then learned an instrumental discrimination in which keyboard responses were paired with either cigarette or chocolate outcomes on a 50% reinforcement schedule. In the final transfer stage the cues were presented followed by a choice between the two keys. The cues elicited a bias for the response that had earned the same outcome as the current cue. This outcome specific transfer effect was not sensitive to extinction of either the cigarette or chocolate cues. These findings add to previous animal work, suggesting that extinction does not reduce cue elicited responding in the PIT task, and have implications for treatments involving cue exposure.