ReviewLearning & behavior2021
Context, attention, and the switch between habit and goal-direction in behavior.
Review in Learning & behavior, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed.
- Does time pressure reveal habits? Divergent results from outcome devaluation and response remapping paradigms.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Evolution of behavioral flexibility and the forming and breaking of habits.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Sequence termination cues drive automated habit-like strategy via dopamine-mediated processes.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Habit and the hippocampus: Model-based spatial representations without outcome-sensitive control.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cognitive functions of the GPe.Trends in neurosciences · 2026Review
- Dissociable roles of prefrontal plasticity in decision-making strategy and execution of habitual behavior.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Habits in Pavlovian learning: Resistance to devaluation by sensory-specific satiety following extensive exposure to palatable tastes.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- Human goal-directed behavior is resistant to interventions on the action-outcome contingency.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Does the Habit Theory of Addictions Extend to Disordered Gambling?Current addiction reports · 2026Review
- The effects of discriminative stimuli on combined relapse: A preliminary human-operant investigation.Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior · 2026Article
- Sequence termination cues drive habits via dopamine-mediated credit assignment.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Temporal context-guided memory capabilities in rodents.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Goal-direction and habit in human and nonhuman behavioral sequences (behavior chains).Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2025Article
- Outcome devaluation as a method for identifying goal-directed behaviors in rats.Nature protocols · 2025Review
- How can we apply decision-making theories to wild animal behavior? Predictions arising from dual process theory and Bayesian decision theory.American journal of primatology · 2025Review
- Framing as a mechanism to overcome the temptation of bad habits.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Article
- Response-specificity or response-generality of inhibition in an operant feature-negative discrimination: Influence of the amount of inhibition training and attention to the response.Learning and motivation · 2024Article
- Random interval schedule of reinforcement influences punishment resistance for cocaine in rats.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
This article reviews recent findings from the author's laboratory that may provide new insights into how habits are made and broken. Habits are extensively practiced behaviors that are automatically evoked by antecedent cues and performed without their goal (or reinforcer) "in mind." Goal-directed actions, in contrast, are instrumental behaviors that are performed because their goal is remembered and valued. New results suggest that actions may transition to habit after extended practice when conditions encourage reduced attention to the behavior. Consistent with theories of attention and learning, a behavior may command less attention (and become habitual) as its reinforcer becomes well-predicted by cues in the environment; habit learning is prevented if presentation of the reinforcer is uncertain. Other results suggest that habits are not permanent, and that goal-direction can be restored by several environmental manipulations, including exposure to unexpected reinforcers or context change. Habits are more context-dependent than goal-directed actions are. Habit learning causes retroactive interference in a way that is reminiscent of extinction: It inhibits, but does not erase, goal-direction in a context-dependent way. The findings have implications for the understanding of habitual and goal-directed control of behavior as well as disordered behaviors like addictions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.