Anticipating Habit Formation

Mobile computing systems hold the promise of becoming a cost-effective solution for supporting behavior change towards more healthy lifestyles. We present here an approach where the system implements a formal model of habit formation based on psychology theories, anticipates the behaviors and cognitive states of the users, and picks interventions based on model predictions. First, we discuss the motivation and system requirements for the approach. Next, we propose in detail an underlying computational model of habit formation which constitutes the key component of the system. Finally, future work and challenges will be discussed, focusing on the empirical validation of the model and the mapping between the model and intervention techniques.