Current limits of experimental research into habits and future directions

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Highlights

  • Insensitivity to devaluation could be due to habits or weak goal-directed control.

  • Limited direct evidence for habits as a function of behavioral repetition in humans.

  • We suggest alternative paradigms to measure cue-driven, value-insensitive behavior.

The outcome devaluation paradigm allows for the differentiation between goal-directed actions and habits and has been used extensively in both animal and human studies. This has been a fruitful avenue of research with translational human research reporting reduced sensitivity to devaluation in a number of clinical populations using various different paradigms. However, these paradigms do not provide a direct window on the extent to which impaired performance is due to strong habit formation or to weak goal-directed control. We review the indirect nature of the existing evidence from both animal and human studies and suggest avenues for future research including combining behavioral repetition with manipulations to reduce goal-directed control processes as well as alternative paradigms such as the Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer task.

Introduction

Habits are of great interest to the scientific community with a PubMed search revealing that in 2016, nearly 5000 publications contained the word ‘habit’ in the title or abstract. While the definition of habit varies, researchers in the field of associative learning distinguish between goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to the current motivational value of outcomes and habitual behaviors that are stamped in through repetition and are directly triggered by the environment [1, 2]. The outcome devaluation paradigm was developed as a means of assessing whether observed behavior is goal-directed or habitual [3, 4]. Following devaluation of an outcome (through, e.g. satiation on a particular food) responding for that outcome is assessed (see Figure 1, left panel). If behavior is goal-directed then responding for the devalued outcome will be reduced. Persistent responding for the devalued outcome, however, is typically regarded as evidence that responses are being directly triggered by the context, via stimulus-response (S-R) associations. This choice test is performed in extinction (without any reinforcement) in order to prevent novel learning and examine instead the integration of the new outcome value with existing response-outcome (R-O) associations. The outcome devaluation paradigm has been used to systematically investigate the parameters that affect the transition of control from goal-directed to habitual behavior in animals, and the neurobiological substrates of these two processes. Although the inflexibility and efficiency of habits is often mentioned in the same breath, this body of research remains quite separate from that of (motor) skill learning (e.g. [5]) where automaticity is measured as, for example, decreased RTs with repetition. The following sections will highlight some of the translational research from animals to humans using the outcome devaluation paradigm and some of the challenges that have arisen in this field, particularly in the hunt for the behavioral and neurobiological signatures of habits in humans.

Section snippets

Parameters leading to insensitivity to outcome devaluation

Seminal studies in the 1980s showed that even rats could flexibly adjust responding depending on the current incentive value of the consequences of their actions [3, 4]. Adams and colleagues demonstrated that moderately trained rats immediately reduced responding for a food outcome that had been paired with lithium chloride (inducing illness), whereas extensively trained rats displayed no such reduction in responding for the devalued food [3, 4, 6]. In line with dual-process theory, subsequent

Demonstrations of habits

Insensitivity to devaluation  for example, in certain psychopathologies  could result from excessive habit formation or weak goal-directed control or a combination of the two. Most of the behavioral paradigms currently at our disposal (such as the slips-of-action task) measure the relative balance between the two systems but do not allow us to distinguish between them (see: [31] for a similar discussion of habits in the domain of compulsivity). Although the sequential-decision task includes a

Alternative ways to study habits

Translational research is difficult  especially because human participants use different (explicit) strategies that could potentially prevent the behavioral expression of habit formation. Some studies have measured insensitivity to outcome devaluation using a concurrent choice test in which participants are simply asked to choose between two outcomes of differing value and, crucially, in the absence of any discriminative stimuli. Using this very simple procedure where the two outcomes (differing

Conclusion

For nearly 40 years the outcome devaluation paradigm has provided a clear and coherent measure of assessing whether behavior is goal-directed or habitual. Researchers in the field of associative learning, behavioral neurosciences and clinical psychology have used this paradigm to explore the conditions under which behavior is shifted from one to the other forms of control and the distinct neurobiological networks that support both types of learning. However, doubts remain as to the extent to

Funding

Funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO; 016.145.382).

Conflict of interest statement

Nothing declared.

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

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