Understanding habit formation in complex tasks

了解复杂任务中习惯的形成

• 批准号: 2218406
• 负责人: Adrian Haith
• 金额: $ 49.83万
• 依托单位: Johns Hopkins University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2218406&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; habit; formation; complex; tasks

Much of our daily behavior is supported by habits, which we usually only become aware of when our behavior needs to change. For example, if we need to switch to driving a right-hand-drive vehicle while on vacation, we find ourselves habitually looking in the wrong location for the rear-view mirror and reaching with the wrong arm for the handbrake. Habits can be beneficial because they enable skills to be performed well without much conscious thought. However, habits can also be detrimental because they limit our capacity to change our behavior. It is therefore critical to understand how we acquire and eliminate habits. Habit formation has been widely studied using simple tasks in which people learn to associate visual cues with specific responses. This body of research has given rise to an “all or nothing” view of habits, in which behavior is either flexible or habitual. In more complex skills, however, some aspects of our behavior might be habitual while others remain flexible. For example, a worker in a production facility might have substantial flexibility in being able to assemble many different types of devices. But if the layout of their workspace is re-organized, they may habitually reach for the old (now wrong) location to retrieve a needed tool or component. It can therefore be critical to ensure that seemingly flexible behavior does not mask latent habits. The goal of this project is to develop systematic approaches to identifying which aspects of a behavior are habitual, understand how and when different components of a complex skill become habitual with practice and determine how formation of different types of habits can be shaped based on how we practice. Being able to identify and target specific habits during learning will help improve training programs to foster good habits and avoid or eliminate bad ones. While this project will focus on the role of habits in learning complex skills, the findings will also be applicable to other domains where habits play an important role, such as understanding consumer behavior, promoting a healthy lifestyle, and developing strategies for rehabilitation from injury or disease.In this project, human participants will learn and practice a variety of tasks which require them to use multiple component processes to determine appropriate responses to visual stimuli. Over the course of practice over multiple sessions, the investigators will track whether and when the different underlying components of behavior become habitual. Whether or not each component of behavior becomes habitual is assessed by altering the requirements of the task in a way that is specific to each component, and then measuring the incidence of habitual ‘slips-of-action’ in which participants revert to the pattern of behavior they originally practiced. In further experiments, participants will be trained under conditions designed to promote formation of one type of habit while inhibiting formation of others.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

我们的许多日常行为都受到习惯的支持，我们通常只有在需要改变行为时才会意识到。例如，如果我们在度假时需要切换到驾驶右舵驾驶的车辆，我们会发现自己习惯性地在错误的位置寻找后视镜，并用错误的手臂去拉手刹。习惯可以是有益的，因为它们使技能在没有太多有意识思考的情况下得到很好的发挥。然而，习惯也可能是有害的，因为它们限制了我们改变行为的能力。因此，了解我们如何获得和消除习惯至关重要。习惯的形成已经被广泛研究，使用简单的任务，其中人们学会了将视觉线索与特定的反应联系起来。这一系列的研究导致了一种关于习惯的“全有或全无”的观点，即行为要么是灵活的，要么是习惯性的。然而，在更复杂的技能中，我们行为的某些方面可能是习惯性的，而其他方面则保持灵活性。例如，生产设施中的工人在能够组装许多不同类型的设备方面可能具有相当大的灵活性。但是，如果他们的工作空间布局被重新组织，他们可能会习惯性地到达旧的（现在错误的）位置来检索所需的工具或组件。因此，确保看似灵活的行为不会掩盖潜在的习惯至关重要。该项目的目标是开发系统的方法来识别行为的哪些方面是习惯性的，了解复杂技能的不同组成部分如何以及何时通过实践成为习惯，并确定如何根据我们的实践形成不同类型的习惯。在学习过程中能够识别和针对特定的习惯将有助于改善培训计划，以培养良好的习惯，避免或消除不良习惯。虽然该项目将重点关注习惯在学习复杂技能中的作用，但研究结果也将适用于习惯发挥重要作用的其他领域，例如了解消费者行为，促进健康的生活方式，以及制定受伤或疾病康复策略。在该项目中，人类参与者将学习和实践各种任务，这些任务要求他们使用多个分量过程来确定对视觉刺激的适当响应。在多个阶段的实践过程中，研究人员将跟踪行为的不同潜在成分是否以及何时成为习惯。行为的每一个组成部分是否成为习惯性的评估是通过改变任务的要求，以一种方式，是特定于每个组成部分，然后测量习惯性的“动作失误”的发生率，参与者恢复到他们原来练习的行为模式。在进一步的实验中，参与者将在旨在促进一种习惯形成而抑制其他习惯形成的条件下接受培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。