Sign-tracking bias is associated with the inhibition of motor response to appetitive food cues

Response training, such as with the Go/NoGo task, reduces the value of trained items by requiring participants to repeatedly inhibit their responses to appetitive cues that typically elicit approach tendencies. This devaluation is thought to reflect a reduction in motivational conflict between the cue-driven approach and task demand for response withholding. In this registered report, we examined whether individual differences in Pavlovian learning style, measured via a sign-tracking bias during a separate Pavlovian conditioning task, are associated with the topography of event-related potentials recorded during a food-related Go/NoGo task. We also assessed whether this bias correlates with participants' reaction times and commission errors during the task. We found a covariance between sign-tracking bias and pre-training topographic electrophysiological responses during the P3 ERP component, but no association with training-induced plastic modification. Additionally, we found positive evidence for an absence of relationship between sign-tracking bias and behavioral responses at pre-training (<i>r</i> = 0.0, BF₀₁ > 3), and weak evidence for its absence post-training (<i>r</i> = 0.1, BF₀₁ < 3). These findings indicate that sign-tracking bias modulates the activity of a specific brain network involved in inhibition of responses to appetitive cues. However, the absence of modulation induced by training suggests that food Go/NoGo training operates through pathways independent of the sign-tracking bias.