The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Contextual control of instrumental actions and habits.
Open accessAbstract
After a relatively small amount of training, instrumental behavior is thought to be an action under the control of the motivational status of its goal or reinforcer. After more extended training, behavior can become habitual and insensitive to changes in reinforcer value. Recently, instrumental responding has been shown to weaken when tested outside of the training context. The present experiments compared the sensitivity of instrumental responding in rats with a context switch after training procedures that might differentially generate actions or habits. In Experiment 1, lever pressing was decremented in a new context after either short, medium, or long periods of training on either random-ratio or yoked random-interval reinforcement schedules. Experiment 2 found that more minimally trained responding was also sensitive to a context switch. Moreover, Experiment 3 showed that when the goal-directed component of responding was removed by devaluing the reinforcer, the residual responding that remained was still sensitive to the change of context. Goal-directed responding, in contrast, transferred across contexts. Experiment 4 then found that after extensive training, a habit that was insensitive to reinforcer devaluation was still decremented by a context switch. Overall, the results suggest that a context switch primarily influences instrumental habit rather than action. In addition, even a response that has received relatively minimal training may have a habit component that is insensitive to reinforcer devaluation but sensitive to the effects of a context switch.
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“By contrast, when a behavior is stably rewarded in a specific context, this contextual stability has been proposed to facilitate execution of a habitual behavior, possibly through serving the contextual information as a promoter8,14,53.”
From Dissociable roles of prefrontal plasticity in decision-making strategy and execution of habitual behavior (2026) · cites this paper as [53]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Thrailkill, E. A., & Bouton, M. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Vermont (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition
- Published
- 2015
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 69-80
- ISSN
- 2329-8456 (ISSN-L)
- 2329-8464
- PMC
- PMC4339261
- OpenAlex
- W2323515383
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 6.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology Animal Learning and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (RO1 DA033123)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- instrumental behavior, habit formation, goal-directed behavior, context switching, reinforcer devaluation, context sensitivity, lever pressing, rats, transfer of learning
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Animals, Conditioning, Operant, Extinction, Psychological, Female, Food Deprivation, Habits, Motivation, Reinforcement, Psychology, Time Factors, Rats
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