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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Repeatedly rewarded actions can become habits in animals, but human habit formation is less understood.
  • Existing human research on habit formation has yielded inconsistent results.
  • Two key paradigms, the forced-response task and the outcome-devaluation task, are used to study habit formation in humans.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To replicate and examine the reliability and convergent validity of two distinct measures of habitual control in humans.
  • To investigate whether the forced-response task and outcome-devaluation task capture similar or distinct aspects of habit formation.
  • To assess the stability of individual differences in habitual control.

Main Methods:

  • Participants underwent four days of training in both the forced-response task and the outcome-devaluation task.
  • Habitualization was assessed by measuring response persistence in the forced-response task and reaction time switch costs in the outcome-devaluation task.
  • Reliability and convergent validity of the two measures were statistically evaluated.

Main Results:

  • Previous findings were replicated in the forced-response task, showing persistent trained responses.
  • In the outcome-devaluation task, a loss of response speed advantage was observed, consistent with habit formation.
  • Both measures demonstrated good reliability, but showed no association, failing to provide evidence of convergent validity.

Conclusions:

  • The forced-response task and outcome-devaluation task are reliable measures of habitual control but capture distinct constructs.
  • Current measures may assess different facets of the habitual versus goal-directed control balance.
  • Further research is needed to establish the construct validity and reliability of human habit measures.