Snapping Out of Autopilot
Overriding Habits in Real Time and the Role of Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21786214 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cole Korponay (0000-0003-2562-9617, Harvard University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 482-490 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives on Psychological Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1745-6916 • E-ISSN: 1745-6924 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/17456916221120033 |
| PMID | 36137178 |
| OpenAlex | W4296794725 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 66 |
Habits allow environmental and interoceptive cues to trigger behavior in an automatized fashion, making them liable to deployment in inappropriate or outdated contexts. Over the long term, repeated failure of a once-adaptive habit to satisfy current goals produces extinction learning that suppresses the habit’s execution. Less attention has been afforded to the mechanisms underlying real-time habit suppression: the capacity to stop the execution of a cued habit that is goal conflicting. Here, I first posit a model by which goal-relevant stimuli can (a) bring unfolding habits and their projected outcomes into awareness, (b) prompt evaluation of the habit outcome with respect to current goals, and (c) trigger cessation of the habit response if it is determined to be goal conflicting. Second, I propose a modified stop-signal task to test this model of goal-directed stopping of habit execution. Finally, I marshal evidence indicating that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, situated at the nexus of salience detection, action-plan assessment, and motor inhibition networks, is uniquely positioned to coordinate the overriding of habitual behaviors in real time. In sum, this perspective presents a testable model and candidate neurobiological substrate for our capacity to “snap out of autopilot” and override goal-conflicting habits in real time
Automaticity · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cued speech · Habit · Prefrontal cortex · Functional Brain Connectivity Studies · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies · Neuroscience · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments · Social Psychology
Drug Addiction
Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex
Dissociable Intrinsic Connectivity Networks for Salience Processing and Executive Control
Categorization of action slips.
Goals and Habits in the Brain
Neural systems of reinforcement for drug addiction
The Law of Effect
The Reorienting System of the Human Brain
A consensus guide to capturing the ability to inhibit actions and impulsive behaviors in the stop-signal task
| Highly cited | No |
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