Building momentum: A computational account of persistence toward long-term goals
Fig 2
A. Participants show a preference for the progress accrued over the current rate of progress.
Participants primarily chose between the dominant suit (one with the highest probability within the block) and the max progress suit (one which made greatest progress towards the target), while choosing the third option relatively infrequently. B. The proportion of times participants chose the max progress suit over the dominant suit (when the two diverge) is broken down by block type. The preference for the max progress option increases with the difference in progress between the dominant and max progress suits. C. Participants show a preference for the retrospective suit over the prospective suit (when the two choices diverge). Participants chose the retrospective suit (with the greatest progress) over the prospective suit (optimal choice prescribed the task-optimized prospective agent). D. Learning effects within blocks. Panel shows the dominant suit choice probability in the first and second halves of the block (15 rounds each). The proportion of dominant choices increases in the second half indicating learning effects within blocks. The choice patterns are contrasted with that of the task-optimized prospective agent, wherein, preference for the dominant suit is significantly lower in participants in both halves of the blocks, indicating suboptimal retrospective bias in goal selection.