Neuropsychologie de l’habitude : une perspective historique pour mieux comprendre les enjeux actuels

Résumé Fr En

Un obstacle majeur à la compréhension des mécanismes sous-tendant l’acquisition et l’expression des habitudes semble être la confusion conceptuelle qui a caractérisé ce domaine de recherche pendant de nombreuses décennies en psychologie. Cette confusion est en grande partie due aux travaux menés en parallèle (et donc aux différences terminologiques) sur ce thème dans les champs de la recherche animale et de la recherche chez l’homme en sciences cognitives entre les années 1960 et le début des années 1990. À certains égards, cette confusion (ou manque de consensus) persiste encore aujourd’hui. Comprendre l’évolution du concept permet d’en connaître l’origine, d’en recenser et définir les différents termes connexes ou synonymes, et in fine de proposer une définition opérationnelle et consensuelle des habitudes. Dans cet article d’opinion, nous proposons une brève synthèse de l’histoire du concept d’habitude dans le champ de la psychologie et de la neuropsychologie afin d’exposer les limites et les enjeux actuels.

The neuropsychology of habit: how a historical perspective can shed light on current issuesOne major obstacle to understanding the mechanisms behind the acquisition and expression of habits seems to be the conceptual confusion that has reigned in this area of psychology research for so many decades. This confusion (or lack of consensus) is largely due to the fact that, between the 1960s and early 1990s, research on this topic was conducted in parallel in the fields of animal and human cognitive science, leading to terminological differences. Understanding how the concept of habit emerged makes it possible to identify and define the various related terms or synonyms, to know how they came about, and, ultimately, to propose an operational and consensual definition of habits.This article provides a brief history of the concept of habit in the humanities, psychology, and cognitive neuropsychology. It is divided into six parts. First, we relate the earliest occurrences of the term at the end of the nineteenth century, in the field of human sciences. Second, we look at the behavioral context in which the concept of habit was originally studied in psychology. Third, we describe how cognitive psychologists abandoned this concept in order to develop related but distinct concepts. Fourth, we examine how cognitive neuropsychology studies in patients with amnesic syndromes led to habit being conceptualized as a subcomponent of nondeclarative memory. Fifth, we discuss the reemergence of parallel studies in animals and humans, especially studies of frontal-subcortical syndromes. Sixth, and finally, we identify areas of apparent agreement, as well as those subject to debate (or at least discussion), in this promising research on the neuropsychology of habit.