Job Alert!!! We are looking for a motivated postdoc to join a 3-year BBSRC funded project led by my colleague Carl Stevenson (I’m coPI). This multi-disciplinary project will combine in vivo heart rate monitoring and optogenetics with behavioural testing (fear and active avoidance) in rats.

🌱Don’t miss out on the Habit highlights at the EHPS conference in Groningen!🌱 From habit decay strategies and AI-driven interventions to fresh insights into measurement and automatic influences on behaviour, this year’s program features inspiring research and networking opportunities.

New preprint! Habits should get stronger with more practice, right? Well, this crucial result has been difficult to reproduce in human labs. In an instant classic, de Wit (2018) showed 5 failures in obtaining more evidence of habits in conditions with more training -as compared to little trained

The good news? If there’s more than one mechanism driving compulsive behaviour, there’s likely more than one way to intervene! We talk about this in our @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social review @eikekofi.bsky.social @parnianrafei.bsky.social www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

🚨PREPRINT ALERT🚨 Why do some people get stuck doing things that no longer make sense, or are even harmful? Our new study shows compulsivity isn’t just about weakened goal-directed control; people high in compulsivity also form stronger habits 📄: osf.io/preprints/ps... #PaperFairy #Habits #CogSci

In this article, @yuedu.bsky.social and @adrianhaith.bsky.social show that behavior can become habitual in two different ways, involving response initiation and response preparation, respectively www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Many variables determine whether instrumental behaviour is goal-directed or habitual. We have documented in rats that delays between response and outcome attenuate sensitivity to outcome devaluation (a canonical test of goal directedness). In this study we replicated that observation in humans.

If you're interested in #habits, check out these two papers by @eikekofi.bsky.social (tinyurl.com/mu96jzdd) & @drbengardner.bsky.social (tinyurl.com/3nd4bx5p). I reread them recently & highly recommend them. Each presents a model & uses it to suggest ways to form/break habits in real-world settings.