Cognitive training reduces the strength of Pavlovian biases

Pavlovian biases are patterns of behaviour that involve approaching stimuli associated with reward and avoiding those associated with punishment (regardless of whether this is actually optimal behaviour). They are an ubiquitous feature of everyday decision-making, and are also believed to play an important role in the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Although Pavlovian biases have classically been described as fixed and automatic, some studies have indicated that their influence on behaviour can actually vary over time and with task demands. While these results hint that people may have some control over their Pavlovian biases, direct behavioural evidence for this control is still lacking. In a preregistered, double-blind, sham-controlled study (N = 800), we tested whether a week-long cognitive training intervention could reduce Pavlovian biases on the Orthogonalised Go/No-Go task, a well-established paradigm for isolating Pavlovian-instrumental conflict. Participants were trained on either high-conflict or no-conflict conditions of the task across five days. Using reinforcement learning models to dissociate components of decision-making, we found that high-conflict training led to a significant reduction in Pavlovian bias—particularly avoidance bias—at follow-up. This result is incompatible with the view that Pavlovian biases are fixed and automatic, and instead implies much greater flexibility in the way that they influence cognition than has previously been understood. The training was kept deliberately simple (i.e. one stimulus per condition, with the correct responses kept constant over sessions) so as to provide a minimal proof of concept of whether Pavlovian biases can be reduced through training, but as a result we did not observe transfer to other tasks or self-reported mood. Nonetheless, these findings demonstrate that targeted cognitive training can modulate Pavlovian biases, which may be beneficial both in everyday life and especially in the context of affective disorders like anxiety and depression.