Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do Consequences Shape Action?
Identify the predicted training-by-devaluation contrast in each procedure and examine why the five experiments do not all constitute the same replication.
Why you’re reading it. End by testing the bridge from repetition to habitual control. The optional Pool study extends this question through a preregistered multilaboratory design.
A question to consider. Design one comparison that would distinguish a stronger habit from weaker goal-directed control after extended training. What manipulation check and informative null result would your interpretation need?
Why this reading
A task can be widely used to study habits without reliably demonstrating their formation. These experiments test whether additional training makes human behavior less sensitive to changed outcomes and expose difficulties in interpreting that criterion.
Before you read
Outcome devaluation reduces an outcome’s current value after training. A subsequent extinction test measures responding without delivering new outcomes. Habit induction predicts a training-related reduction in sensitivity to devaluation, not merely some continued responding. Poor goal-directed control and stronger habitual control can produce overlapping task results.
Read for
- Compare the avoidance, slips-of-action, and food-reward procedures, noting that only the final two studies attempt to replicate the earlier food-reward demonstration.
- Identify the training-by-outcome-value comparison needed to establish the predicted shift, and distinguish it from residual responding in both training conditions.
- Assess manipulation checks, task differences, and the authors’ caution about drawing conclusions from null effects.
Consider afterwards
- Both briefly and extensively trained groups keep making some devalued responses. What contrast is still needed to show that extra training strengthened habitual control, and what alternative could explain the residual responses?
Editorial context
The five experiments do not show that human habits are absent, nor are they five identical direct replications. The authors acknowledge nonsystematic changes between tasks and possible effects of training duration and testing conditions. Pool and colleagues’ preregistered four-laboratory study (2022) likewise found no statistical evidence for the main overtraining effect; its proposed stress-related moderation was exploratory. These results make operational definitions and boundary conditions central to interpreting habit tasks.