Reward Accelerates the Preparation of Goal-directed Actions under Conflict
Open accessAbstract
Our goals sometimes conflict with our prepotent habitual responses, which often leads to impaired performance on a variety of tasks. People are better at exerting cognitive control to overcome prepotent and automatic responses when they are motivated by the prospect of reward. The standard experimental paradigms used to study this phenomenon examine free RTs that allow participants to select a variety of response strategies including delaying response initiation to avoid committing errors. However, this approach makes it difficult to determine which control processes are affected by reward. Does reward lead to improved performance via the inhibition of prepotent responses or the facilitation of goal-directed processing? Here, we use a forced-response paradigm to fix response initiation and systematically vary the time available for the cognitive processing necessary for response preparation. Using a probabilistic model that dissociates the preparation of habitual and goal-directed responses, we obtain evidence across multiple experiments (n = 87 people) that reward selectively accelerates the preparation of goal-directed actions in the context of conflict.
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Goal-directed processing is effortful and slow, and thus goal-directed responses are often prepared more slowly compared to habitual responses.
“In contrast, goal-directed processing is effortful and slow, and thus goal-directed responses are often prepared more slowly compared to habitual responses27,28.”
From Delayed goal-directed processing underlies inhibitory control challenges in adult ADHD (2026) · cites this paper as [28]
The Replication Study reports that goal-directed responses took longer to prepare than automatic responses (348 versus 213 ms), supporting the comparison. The Introduction describes additional processing to resolve conflict, but the paper does not establish that effortfulness causes the slower preparation. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredHabitual processing is fast, so responses associated with habitual processes are often prepared early in time.
“Habitual processing is fast, so responses associated with habitual processes are often prepared early in time27,28.”
From Delayed goal-directed processing underlies inhibitory control challenges in adult ADHD (2026) · cites this paper as [28]
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Delayed goal-directed processing underlies inhibitory control challenges in adult ADHD
Osborne, J. B., Sellers, J., Zhang, H., Wang, S., Liberatore, S., Sripada, C., Shah, P., & Jonides, J. (2026) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-026-42307-3 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Adkins, T. J., & Lee, T. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Corresponding author
- Adkins, Tyler J.
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Published
- 2024
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 2831-2846
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W4387719239
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 1.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Keywords
- reward, goal-directed action, prepotent response, response conflict, cognitive control, response preparation, response inhibition, probabilistic models
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Conflict, Psychological, Female, Goals, Humans, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Reward, Young Adult
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