Conditional stimuli (CS) that are paired with reward can be used to motivate instrumental responses. This process is called Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT). A recent study in rats suggested that habitual responses are particularly sensitive to the motivational effects of reward cues. The current experiments examined this idea using ratio and interval training in mice. Two groups of animal...

To represent value for learning and decision making, the brain must encode information about both the motivational relevance and affective valence of anticipated outcomes. The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) are thought to play key roles in representing these and other aspects of valuation. Here, we manipulated the valence (i.e., monetary gain or loss) and personal rel...

The efficacy of brief treatments for media-recruited pathological gamblers was tested in a randomized clinical trial design (N = 314). Two self-directed motivational interventions were compared with a 6-week waiting list control and a workbook only control. Brief motivational treatment involved a telephone motivational interview and a mailed self-help workbook. Brief motivational booster treatm...

This paper presents an embodied biologically-plausible model investigating the relationships existing between Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. The model is validated by successfully reproducing the primary outcomes of instrumental-conditioning devaluation tests conducted with normal and amygdala-lesioned rats. These experiments are particularly important as they show how the sensitivity...

Creating believable agents with personality is a popular research area in game studies but academic research in this area usually focuses on one facet of personality for example, only on moods or character traits. The present study proposes a motivational framework to predict goal-directed behaviour of virtual agents in a computer game and explores the opportunities of using personality invento...

A distinction is drawn between two forms of prospective behavior, goal-directed behavior and future planning, in terms of the motivational relevance of the goal or outcome of the behavior. Goal-directed behavior is relevant to the animal’s current motivational state, whereas future planning refers to action taken in the service of future needs. Two criteria are employed to distinguish goal-dire...

Research distinguishes between a habitual, model-free system motivated toward immediately rewarding actions, and a goal-directed, model-based system motivated toward actions that improve future state. We examined the balance of processing in these two systems during state-based decision-making. We tested a regulatory fit hypothesis (Maddox & Markman, 2010) that predicts that global trait motiva...

Schizophrenia is associated with motivational deficits that interfere with a wide range of goal directed activities. Despite their clinical importance, our current understanding of these motivational impairments is limited. Furthermore, different types of motivational problems are commonly seen among individuals within the broad diagnosis of schizophrenia. The goal of the current study was to e...