title: Devaluation and sequential decisions: linking goal-directed and model-based behavior.
abstract: In experimental psychology different experiments have been developed to assess goal-directed as compared to habitual control over instrumental decisions. Similar to animal studies selective devaluation procedures have been used. More recently sequential decision-making tasks have been designed to assess the degree of goal-directed vs. habitual choice behavior in terms of an influential computational theory of model-based compared to model-free behavioral control. As recently suggested, different measurements are thought to reflect the same construct. Yet, there has been no attempt to directly assess the construct validity of these different measurements. In the present study, we used a devaluation paradigm and a sequential decision-making task to address this question of construct validity in a sample of 18 healthy male human participants. Correlational analysis revealed a positive association between model-based choices during sequential decisions and goal-directed behavior after devaluation suggesting a single framework underlying both operationalizations and speaking in favor of construct validity of both measurement approaches. Up to now, this has been merely assumed but never been directly tested in humans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Friedel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wendt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heinz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany ; Max Planck-Fellow Group "Cognitive and Affective Control of Behavioural Adaptation," Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Lorenz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Deserno
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany ; Max Planck-Fellow Group "Cognitive and Affective Control of Behavioural Adaptation," Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schlagenhauf
keywords: 2-step decision task; computational modeling; devaluation task; habitual and goal-directed behavior; model-based and model-free learning; reinforcement learning