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Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control

Instrumental learning and decision-making rely on two parallel systems: a goal-directed and a habitual system. In the past decade, several paradigms have been developed to study these systems in animals and humans by means of e.g., overtraining, devaluation procedures and sequential decision-making....

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Autores principales: Sjoerds, Zsuzsika, Dietrich, Anja, Deserno, Lorenz, de Wit, Sanne, Villringer, Arno, Heinze, Hans-Jochen, Schlagenhauf, Florian, Horstmann, Annette
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5167743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28066200
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00234
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author Sjoerds, Zsuzsika
Dietrich, Anja
Deserno, Lorenz
de Wit, Sanne
Villringer, Arno
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Schlagenhauf, Florian
Horstmann, Annette
author_facet Sjoerds, Zsuzsika
Dietrich, Anja
Deserno, Lorenz
de Wit, Sanne
Villringer, Arno
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Schlagenhauf, Florian
Horstmann, Annette
author_sort Sjoerds, Zsuzsika
collection PubMed
description Instrumental learning and decision-making rely on two parallel systems: a goal-directed and a habitual system. In the past decade, several paradigms have been developed to study these systems in animals and humans by means of e.g., overtraining, devaluation procedures and sequential decision-making. These different paradigms are thought to measure the same constructs, but cross-validation has rarely been investigated. In this study we compared two widely used paradigms that assess aspects of goal-directed and habitual behavior. We correlated parameters from a two-step sequential decision-making task that assesses model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) learning with a slips-of-action paradigm that assesses the ability to suppress cue-triggered, learnt responses when the outcome has been devalued and is therefore no longer desirable. MB control during the two-step task showed a very moderately positive correlation with goal-directed devaluation sensitivity, whereas MF control did not show any associations. Interestingly, parameter estimates of MB and goal-directed behavior in the two tasks were positively correlated with higher-order cognitive measures (e.g., visual short-term memory). These cognitive measures seemed to (at least partly) mediate the association between MB control during sequential decision-making and goal-directed behavior after instructed devaluation. This study provides moderate support for a common framework to describe the propensity towards goal-directed behavior as measured with two frequently used tasks. However, we have to caution that the amount of shared variance between the goal-directed and MB system in both tasks was rather low, suggesting that each task does also pick up distinct aspects of goal-directed behavior. Further investigation of the commonalities and differences between the MF and habit systems as measured with these, and other, tasks is needed. Also, a follow-up cross-validation on the neural systems driving these constructs across different paradigms would promote the definition and operationalization of measures of instrumental learning and decision-making in humans.
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spelling pubmed-51677432017-01-06 Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control Sjoerds, Zsuzsika Dietrich, Anja Deserno, Lorenz de Wit, Sanne Villringer, Arno Heinze, Hans-Jochen Schlagenhauf, Florian Horstmann, Annette Front Behav Neurosci Neuroscience Instrumental learning and decision-making rely on two parallel systems: a goal-directed and a habitual system. In the past decade, several paradigms have been developed to study these systems in animals and humans by means of e.g., overtraining, devaluation procedures and sequential decision-making. These different paradigms are thought to measure the same constructs, but cross-validation has rarely been investigated. In this study we compared two widely used paradigms that assess aspects of goal-directed and habitual behavior. We correlated parameters from a two-step sequential decision-making task that assesses model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) learning with a slips-of-action paradigm that assesses the ability to suppress cue-triggered, learnt responses when the outcome has been devalued and is therefore no longer desirable. MB control during the two-step task showed a very moderately positive correlation with goal-directed devaluation sensitivity, whereas MF control did not show any associations. Interestingly, parameter estimates of MB and goal-directed behavior in the two tasks were positively correlated with higher-order cognitive measures (e.g., visual short-term memory). These cognitive measures seemed to (at least partly) mediate the association between MB control during sequential decision-making and goal-directed behavior after instructed devaluation. This study provides moderate support for a common framework to describe the propensity towards goal-directed behavior as measured with two frequently used tasks. However, we have to caution that the amount of shared variance between the goal-directed and MB system in both tasks was rather low, suggesting that each task does also pick up distinct aspects of goal-directed behavior. Further investigation of the commonalities and differences between the MF and habit systems as measured with these, and other, tasks is needed. Also, a follow-up cross-validation on the neural systems driving these constructs across different paradigms would promote the definition and operationalization of measures of instrumental learning and decision-making in humans. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-12-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5167743/ /pubmed/28066200 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00234 Text en Copyright © 2016 Sjoerds, Dietrich, Deserno, de Wit, Villringer, Heinze, Schlagenhauf and Horstmann. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Sjoerds, Zsuzsika
Dietrich, Anja
Deserno, Lorenz
de Wit, Sanne
Villringer, Arno
Heinze, Hans-Jochen
Schlagenhauf, Florian
Horstmann, Annette
Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title_full Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title_fullStr Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title_full_unstemmed Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title_short Slips of Action and Sequential Decisions: A Cross-Validation Study of Tasks Assessing Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control
title_sort slips of action and sequential decisions: a cross-validation study of tasks assessing habitual and goal-directed action control
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5167743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28066200
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00234
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