goaldirected

Goaldirected behavior refers to actions guided by knowledge of likely outcomes and by current desires or goals. Such behavior is contrasted with reflexive or habitual actions that are triggered by stimuli or by past reinforcement without explicit consideration of the result. Goaldirected actions are typically flexible and can be adjusted when outcomes change or when the agent's goals shift.

In psychology and neuroscience, goaldirected behavior is studied as instrumental or operant conditioning with sensitivity to outcome value and action-outcome contingencies. Experimental paradigms use outcome devaluation and contingency degradation to determine whether an action depends on current goals or is automatic.

Neuroscience findings associate goaldirected control with circuits including the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, as well as the dorsomedial striatum. Dopamine signals prediction errors that guide updating of action-outcome models. Researchers distinguish model-based (goaldirected) from model-free (habitual) control, with goaldirected behavior relying on an internal model of the environment.

In artificial intelligence and robotics, goaldirected or model-based planning involves building a model of the world and using it to simulate future outcomes to select actions that maximize a given objective. This contrasts with model-free methods that learn policies from experience without an explicit world model.

Historically, the concept traces to purposive or goal-oriented theories in early psychology and Tolman’s studies of latent learning. Today, goaldirected behavior is a central topic in studying decision making, habit formation, and disorders that involve impaired volitional control.