Revealing abrupt transitions from goal-directed to habitual behavior
Zyan Wang, Adam Charles, Sharlen Moore, Ziyi Zhu, Joy Wang, Ruolan Sun, Angel Lee, Kishore V. Kuchibhotla · COSYNE 2025
A fundamental tenet of animal behavior is that decision-making involves multiple ‘controllers.’ Initially, behavior is goal-directed, driven by desired outcomes, shifting later to habitual control, where cues trigger actions independent of motivational state. Clark Hull’s question from 1943 still resonates today: “Is this transition abrupt, or is it gradual and progressive?” Despite a century-long belief in gradual transitions, this question remains unanswered as current methods cannot disambiguate goal-directed versus habitual control in real-time. Here, we introduce a novel ‘volitional engag
ePoster · Neuroscience