People achieve important life outcomes of health, financial security, and productivity by repeating operant behavior. To identify whether such operants reflect goal pursuit or habit, the present research introduces a new paradigm that yields objective measures of learning and controls for the motivations of goal pursuit. In two experiments, participants practiced a sequential task of making sushi and then completed a test of the strength of cue–response (habit) associations in memory. Finally, they repeated the sushi task without instructions while under cognitive load (designed to impede deliberation about goals). As predicted, greater task practice yielded stronger cue–response associations, which in turn promoted task success. Practice did not improve performance by enhancing goal intentions or other task motivations. We conclude that repetition facilitates performance by creating mental associations that automatically activate practiced, habitual responses upon perception of recurring context cues.

中文翻译：

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衡量推动习惯的情境-反应关联

人们通过重复操作行为来实现健康、财务安全和生产力等重要的生活成果。为了确定这些操作是否反映了目标追求或习惯，本研究引入了一种新的范式，该范式产生了学习的客观衡量标准并控制了目标追求的动机。在两个实验中，参与者练习了制作寿司的连续任务，然后完成了记忆中提示-反应（习惯）关联强度的测试。最后，他们在认知负荷（旨在阻碍对目标的审议）下，在没有指示的情况下重复寿司任务。正如预测的那样，更多的任务练习会产生更强的提示-反应关联，从而促进任务的成功。实践并不能通过增强目标意图或其他任务动机来提高绩效。我们得出的结论是，重复通过创建心理联想来促进表现，这种心理联想会在感知到重复出现的上下文线索后自动激活经过练习的习惯性反应。