Is there a difference between stopping and avoiding? A review of the mechanisms underlying Go/No-Go and Approach-Avoidance training for food choice

Evaluations and intake of unhealthy, palatable food can be targeted via motor response training procedures such as Go/No-Go training (GNG) and Approach-Avoidance training. While evidence especially supports the effectiveness of GNG in changing food intake, both tasks seem to affect evaluations of trained stimuli. Associative accounts explain this devaluation through the formation of associative links with rudimentary appetitive/aversive motivational systems. Alternative models that focus on the resolution of conflict between appetitive stimuli and inhibition, or on inferences about stimulus value through valenced actions, however, may better explain the boundary conditions of motor response training effects. Future research should further test hypotheses derived from these accounts using comparable research protocols to elucidate commonalities and differences between these motor response training tasks.