scholarly journals The neural computation of human prosocial choices in complex motivational states

NeuroImage ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 118827
Author(s):  
Anne Saulin ◽  
Ulrike Horn ◽  
Martin Lotze ◽  
Jochen Kaiser ◽  
Grit Hein
Keyword(s):  
Neural Computation ◽  
Motivational States

scholarly journals The neural computation of human goal-directed behaviors in complex motivational states

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Saulin ◽  
Ulrike Horn ◽  
Martin Lotze ◽  
Jochen Kaiser ◽  
Grit Hein
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Dorsal Striatum ◽  
Neural Computation ◽  
Diffusion Modeling ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Drift Diffusion ◽  
Social Motives ◽  
Behavioral Choice ◽  
Motivational States ◽  
Choice Option

AbstractBecause the motives behind goal-directed behaviors are often complex, most behaviors result from the interplay between different motives. However, it is unclear how this interplay between multiple motives affects the neural computation of goal-directed behaviors. Using a combination of drift-diffusion modeling and fMRI, we show that the interplay between different social motives changes initial preferences for prosocial behavior before a person makes a behavioral choice. This increase in preferences for the prosocial choice option was tracked by neural responses in the bilateral dorsal striatum, which in turn lowered the amount of information necessary for choosing prosocial behavior. We obtained these results using a paradigm in which each participant performed the same behavior based on different, simultaneously activated motives, or based on each of the motives separately. Thus, our findings provide a model of behavioral choice computation in complex motivational states, i.e., the motivational setting that drives most goal-directed human behaviors.

Food-Evoked Changes in Humans

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Walla ◽  
Maria Richter ◽  
Stella Färber ◽  
Ulrich Leodolter ◽  
Herbert Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Food Intake ◽  
Startle Response ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Soft Drink ◽  
Ice Cream ◽  
Response Amplitude ◽  
Response Modulation ◽  
Motivational States ◽  
Localization Analysis ◽  
Study Participants

Two experiments investigate effects related to food intake in humans. In Experiment 1, we measured startle response modulation while study participants ate ice cream, yoghurt, and chocolate. Statistical analysis revealed that ice cream intake resulted in the most robust startle inhibition compared to no food. Contrasting females and males, we found significant differences related to the conditions yoghurt and chocolate. In females, chocolate elicited the lowest response amplitude followed by yoghurt and ice cream. In males, chocolate produced the highest startle response amplitude even higher than eating nothing, whereas ice cream produced the lowest. Assuming that high response amplitudes reflect aversive motivation while low response amplitudes reflect appetitive motivational states, it is interpreted that eating ice cream is associated with the most appetitive state given the alternatives of chocolate and yoghurt across gender. However, in females alone eating chocolate, and in males alone eating ice cream, led to the most appetitive state. Experiment 2 was conducted to describe food intake-related brain activity by means of source localization analysis applied to electroencephalography data (EEG). Ice cream, yoghurt, a soft drink, and water were compared. Brain activity in rostral portions of the superior frontal gyrus was found in all conditions. No localization differences between conditions occurred. While EEG was found to be insensitive, startle response modulation seems to be a reliable method to objectively quantify motivational states related to the intake of different foods.

Oral Approach Avoidance

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 355-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Godinho ◽  
Margarida V. Garrido ◽  
Oleksandr V. Horchak
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Oral Movements ◽  
Motivational States ◽  
Oral Approach ◽  
Approach Avoidance ◽  
Abstract Words ◽  
European Family

Abstract. Words whose articulation resembles ingestion movements are preferred to words mimicking expectoration movements. This so-called in-out effect, suggesting that the oral movements caused by consonantal articulation automatically activate concordant motivational states, was already replicated in languages belonging to Germanic (e.g., German and English) and Italic (e.g., Portuguese) branches of the Indo-European family. However, it remains unknown whether such preference extends to the Indo-European branches whose writing system is based on the Cyrillic rather than Latin alphabet (e.g., Ukrainian), or whether it occurs in languages not belonging to the Indo-European family (e.g., Turkish). We replicated the in-out effect in two high-powered experiments ( N = 274), with Ukrainian and Turkish native speakers, further supporting an embodied explanation for this intriguing preference.

Verbal Regulation of Motivational States

2006 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonsoles Valdivia ◽  
Carmen Luciano ◽  
Francisco J. Molina
Keyword(s):  
Motivational States

The Learner’s Motivation and the Structure of Habituation in Aristotle

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Hampson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Motivational States ◽  
Habituation Process

AbstractMoral virtue is, for Aristotle, a state to which an agent’s motivation is central. For anyone interested in Aristotle’s account of moral development this invites reflection on two questions: how is it that virtuous motivational dispositions are established? And what contribution do the moral learner’s existing motivational states make to the success of her habituation? I argue that views which demand that the learner act with virtuous motives if she is to acquire virtuous dispositions misconstrue the nature and structure of the habituation process, but also obscure Aristotle’s crucial insight that the very practice of virtuous actions affords a certain discovery and can be transformative of an agent’s motivational states. Drawing attention, in Aristotle’s account, to an asymmetry between the agential perspective and the observation of others, I consider what the agential perspective affords the learner, and offer a novel interpretation of the role a learner’s existing motives play in her habituation.

Mixture of principal axes registration: a neural computation approach

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rujirutana Srikanchana ◽  
Jianhua Xuan ◽  
Kun Huang ◽  
Matthew T. Freedman ◽  
Yue J. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Neural Computation ◽  
Principal Axes
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