Momentum is a key driver of temporally-extended goal persistence in humans

We  address  the  question  of  how  humans  select  between  multiple  goals  in  atemporally-extended context. We probed whether humans engage in the prospec-tive evaluation of goals by estimating which goals are likely to yield future successand choosing those, or whether they rely on a less optimal retrospective strategyby favoring goals with greater accumulated progress even if less likely to resultin success. To address this, we introduced a novel task where goals need to bepersistently selected until a set target is reached to earn an overall reward. Ina  series  of  experiments,  we  show  that  human  goal  selection  involves  a  mix  ofboth prospective and retrospective influences, with an undue bias towards ret-rospective  valuation.  We  show  that  a  model  of  goal-selection  that  utilizes  theconcept of ‘momentum’, where progress accrued toward a goal builds value andpersists across trials, successfully explains human behavior better than the alter-native frameworks. Our findings thus suggest an important role for momentumin explaining the valuation process underpinning human goal selection.