Topic: intrinsic motivation

When engaged with a specific task, humans and other animals occasionally make seemingly irrational decisions known as "lapses", even in static and well-learned environments. Given they serve no obvious reward-maximizing purpose, these choices are commonly attributed to disengagement, distraction or sensorimotor noise. However, "lapses" could also be related to a decision-makers' own, hidden objectives. We know, for example, that exploratory objectives can better account for lapses than undirected noise in certain models. Critically, however, there are multiple mechanisms for exploration and we

Current models of behavioral performance are based on a cost/benefit analysis that ignores the impact of intrinsic motivation. Here we conceive intrinsic / extrinsic motivation as being driven by the value of the action itself (e.g., learning good stuff) / the value of the action outcome (e.g., getting a good mark). We propose that, unlike extrinsically motivated actions (for which the reward is delayed), intrinsically motivated actions (for which the reward is concomitant) may not require the exertion of effortful cognitive control.We developed a test where participants memorize and retrieve