Standard dual-process models in the action domain postulate that stimulus-driven processes are responsible for suboptimal behavior because they take them to be rigid and automatic and therefore the default. We propose an alternative dual-process model in which goal-directed processes are the default instead. We then transfer the dual- process logic from the action domain to the emotion domain. This reveals that emotional behavior is often attributed to stimulus-driven processes. Our alternative model submits that goal-directed processes could (...) be the primary determinant of emotional behavior instead. We evaluate the type of empirical evidence required for validating our model and we consider implications of our model for behavior change, encouraging strategies focused on the expectancies and values of action outcomes. (shrink)

Automaticity is rapid and effortless cognition that operates without conscious awareness or deliberative control. An action is virtuous to the degree that it meets the requirements of the ethical virtues in the circumstances. What contribution does automaticity make to the ethical virtue of an action? How far is the automaticity discussed by virtue ethicists consonant with, or even supported by, the findings of empirical psychology? We argue that the automaticity of virtuous action is automaticity not (...) of skill, but of motivation. Automatic motivations that contribute to the virtuousness of an action include not only those that initiate action, but also those that modify action and those that initiate and shape deliberation. We then argue that both goal psychology and attitude psychology can provide the cognitive architecture of this automatic motivation. Since goals are essentially directed towards the agent’s own action whereas attitudes are not, we argue that goals might underpin some virtues while attitudes underpin others. We conclude that consideration of the cognitive architecture of ethical virtue ought to engage with both areas of empirical psychology and should be careful to distinguish among ethical virtues. (shrink)

Dual process theorists in psychology maintain that the mind’s workings can be explained in terms of conscious or controlled processes and automatic processes. Automatic processes are largely nonconscious, that is, triggered by environmental stimuli without the agent’s conscious awareness or deliberation. Automaticity researchers contend that even higher level habitual social behaviors can be nonconsciously primed. This article brings work on automaticity to bear on our understanding of habitual virtuous actions. After examining a recent intuitive account of habitual actions (...) and habitual virtuous actions, the author offers her own explanation in terms of goal-dependent automaticity. This form of automaticity provides an account of habitual virtuous actions that explains the sense in which these actions are rational, that is, done for reasons. Habitual virtuous actions are rational in the sense of being purposive or goal-directed and are essentially linked with the agent’s psychological states. Unlike deliberative virtuous actions, the agent’s reasons for habitual virtuous actions are not present to her conscious awareness at the time of acting. (shrink)

In a century where humans and machines—powered by artificial intelligence or not—increasingly work together, it is of interest to understand human processing of multi-sensory stimuli in relation to attention and working memory. This paper explores whether and when supporting visual information with rhythmic auditory stimuli can optimize multi-sensory information processing. In turn, this can make the interaction between humans or between machines and humans more engaging, rewarding and activating. For this purpose a novel working memory paradigm was developed where participants (...) are presented with a series of five target digits randomly interchanged with five distractor digits. Their goal is to remember the target digits and recall them orally. Depending on the condition support is provided by audio and/or rhythm. It is expected that the sound will lead to a better performance. It is also expected that this effect of sound is different in case of rhythmic and non-rhythmic sound. Last but not least, some variability is expected across participants. To make correct conclusions, the data of the experiment was statistically analyzed in a classic way, but also predictive models were developed in order to predict outcomes based on a range of input variables related to the experiment and the participant. The effect of auditory support could be confirmed, but no difference was observed between rhythmic and non-rhythmic sounds. Overall performance was indeed affected by individual differences, such as visual dominance or perceived task difficulty. Surprisingly a music education did not significantly affect the performance and even tended toward a negative effect. To better understand the underlying processes of attention, also brain activation data, e.g., by means of electroencephalography, should be recorded. This approach can be subject to a future work. (shrink)

Social stimuli grab our attention: we attend to them in an automatic and bottom-up manner, and ascribe them a higher degree of saliency compared to non-social stimuli. However, it has rarely been investigated how variations in attention affect the processing of social stimuli, although the answer could help us uncover details of social cognition processes such as action understanding. In the present study, we examined how changes to bottom-up attention affects neural EEG-responses associated with intentional action processing. We induced an (...) increase in bottom-up attention by using hypnosis. We recorded the electroencephalographic µ-wave suppression of hypnotized participants when presented with intentional actions in first and third person perspective in a video-clip paradigm. Previous studies have shown that the µ-rhythm is selectively suppressed both when executing and observing goal-directed motor actions; hence it can be used as a neural signal for intentional action processing. Our results show that neutral hypnotic trance increases µ-suppression in highly suggestible participants when they observe intentional actions. This suggests that social action processing is enhanced when bottom-up attentional processes are predominant. Our findings support the Social Relevance Hypothesis, according to which social action processing is a bottom-up driven attentional process, and can thus be altered as a function of bottom-up processing devoted to a social stimulus. (shrink)

There is a debate over whether actions that resist devaluation are primarily habit- or goal-directed. The incentive habit account of compulsive actions has received support from behavioral paradigms and brain imaging. In addition, the self-reported Creature of Habit Scale has been proposed to capture inter-individual differences in habitual tendencies. It is subdivided into two dimensions: routine and automaticity. We first considered a French version of this questionnaire for validation, based on a sample of 386 undergraduates. The relationship (...) between two dimensions of habit and the risk of substance use disorder and impulsive personality traits was also investigated. COHS has good psychometric properties with both features of habits positively associated with an Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory score. Besides, the propensity to rely more on routines was associated with lower levels of alcohol abuse and nicotine use, suggesting that some degree of routine might act as a protective factor against substance use. In contrast, a high automaticity score was associated with an increased risk of harmful alcohol use. These results demonstrate that the COHS is a valid measure of habitual tendencies and represents a useful tool for capturing inter-individual variations in drug use problems in undergraduates. (shrink)

Theory suggests that stimulus evaluations automatically evoke approach–avoidance behavior. However, the extent to which approach–avoidance behavior is triggered automatically is not yet clear. Furthermore, the nature of automatically triggered approach–avoidance behavior is controversial. We review research on two views on the type of approach–avoidance behavior that is triggered automatically (arm flexion/extension, distance change). Present evidence supports the distance-change view and corroborates the notion of an automatic pathway from evaluation to distance-change behavior. We discuss underlying mechanisms (direct stimulus–response links, outcome anticipations, (...) goals) as well as implications regarding the flexibility of the evaluation–behavior link. (shrink)

The virtue development literature often draws on the language of goal-directed automaticity and flow states in discussions of virtue. This article examines the attentional features of various virtues and argues that only some virtuous actions can be adequately described in these terms. It proposes a distinction between three kinds of virtuous actions—flow state actions, deliberative actions, and presence actions—which have varying attentional features, bodily reliance, and conscious reasoning in virtue performance. Then the article motivates these distinctions as (...) important, describing how one might take on-board these classifications in character education, providing a more tailored development of virtues. (shrink)

The automatic integration of rapidly expanding information resources in the life sciences is one of the most challenging goals facing biomedical research today. Controlled vocabularies, terminologies, and coding systems play an important role in realizing this goal, by making it possible to draw together information from heterogeneous sources – for example pertaining to genes and proteins, drugs and diseases – secure in the knowledge that the same terms will also represent the same entities on all occasions of use. In (...) the naming of genes, proteins, and other molecular structures, considerable efforts are under way to reduce the effects of the different naming conventions which have been spawned by different groups of researchers. Electronic patient records, too, increasingly involve the use of standardized terminologies, and tremendous efforts are currently being devoted to the creation of terminology resources that can meet the needs of a future era of personalized medicine, in which genomic and clinical data can be aligned in such a way that the corresponding information systems become interoperable. (shrink)

In a task requiring speeded bidirectional responses to arrow symbols , “free choice” responses to interspersed bidirectional stimuli are influenced by masked directional primes . By varying stimulus–response compatibility, we tested whether this priming effect is mediated by the conscious instructional set, or instead by pre-existing directional associations to the symbols. In two experiments, one group of participants was instructed to respond with the hand consistent with the implied direction of the arrow symbols, while another group was instructed to make (...) the spatially opposite responses. Both groups showed priming of “free choice” responses. However, such priming was always biased according to the instructional set rather than pre-existing associations. Subliminal priming of “free choice” responses therefore depends on conscious task goals. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a computational framework aimed at extending the problem solving capabilities of cognitive artificial agents through the introduction of a novel, goal-directed, dynamic knowledge generation mechanism obtained via a non monotonic reasoning procedure. In particular, the proposed framework relies on the assumption that certain classes of problems cannot be solved by simply learning or injecting new external knowledge in the declarative memory of a cognitive artificial agent but, on the other hand, require a mechanism (...) for the automatic and creative re-framing, or re-formulation, of the available knowledge. We show how such mechanism can be obtained trough a framework of dynamic knowledge generation that is able to tackle the problem of commonsense concept combination. In addition, we show how such a framework can be employed in the field of cognitive architectures in order to overcome situations like the impasse in SOAR by extending the possible options of its subgoaling procedures. (shrink)

How can agents act virtuously out of habit? Virtuous actions are done for the right reasons, and acting for (right) reasons seems to involve deliberation. Yet, deliberation is absent if an agent’s action is habitual. That implies that the relationship between reasons and actions should be characterized in such a way that deliberation is unnecessary. In this paper, I examine three possible solutions: radical externalism, unconscious psychologism, and unconscious factualism. I argue that these proposals all fail to cast reasons in (...) their proper role. In light of that, I propose an alternative view of how to account for habitual virtuous actions, based on the work of G. E. M. Anscombe. I maintain that if we focus on the inherently rational structure of actions, the tension between acting habitually and acting for the right reason dissolves. (shrink)

Human cognition and action are intentional and goal-directed, and explaining how they are controlled is one of the most important tasks of the cognitive sciences. After half a century of benign neglect this task is enjoying increased attention. Unfortunately, however, current theorizing about control in general, and the role of consciousness for/in control in particular, suffers from major conceptual flaws that lead to confusion regarding the following distinctions: automatic and unintentional processes, exogenous control and disturbance of endogenous control, (...) conscious control and conscious access to control, and personal and systems levels of analysis and explanation. Only if these flaws are overcome will a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between consciousness and control emerge. (shrink)

Teleological explanations of human actions are explanations in terms of aims, goals, or purposes of human agents. According to a familiar causal approach to analyzing and explaining human action, our actions are, essentially, events (and sometimes states, perhaps) that are suitably caused by appropriate mental items, or neural realizations of those items. Causalists traditionally appeal, in part, to such goal-representing states as desires and intentions (or their neural realizers) in their explanations of human actions, and they take accept-able teleological (...) explanations of our actions to be causal explanations. Some proponents of the view that human actions are explained teleologically resist this. They regard the causal approach as a rival. I dub this position “anticausalist teleologism,” or AT, for short. I favor the causal approach, but I will not directly argue for it here. My aim is more modest. I will develop a serious problem for AT that strongly suggests that teleologists need causalism; and I will rebut a style of objection to the project of providing a causal analysis of acting in pursuit of a goal that recently resurfaced in the literature on teleological explanations of action, a style of objection featuring a certain kind of causal deviance. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous and task-irrelevant (...) challenge previously held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications. (shrink)

The model of addiction proposed by Redish et al. shows a lack of fit with recent data and models in psychological studies of addiction. In these dual process models, relatively automatic appetitive processes are distinguished from explicit goal-directed expectancies and motives, whereas these are all grouped together in the planning system in the Redish et al. model. Implications are discussed.

We can readily identify goal-directed systems and distinguish them from non-goal-directed systems. A woodpecker hunting for grubs is the first, a pendulum returning to rest is the second. But what is it to be a goal-directed system? Perhaps the dominant answer to this question, inspired by systems theories such as cybernetics, is that goal-directed systems are distinguished by their tendency to seek, aim at, or maintain some more-or-less easily identifiable goal. Cybernetics (...) and the like would hold that physical systems subject only to physical laws can exhibit such behavior. If sound, this systems approach to teleology would unify a diverse range of goal-directed phenomena and neatly side-step many traditional bogey-men of teleology, such as anthropomorphism and future causation. Goal-directed phenomena would be a normal feature of the natural causal world that could be described in purely descriptive and quantitative terms, and receive ordinary causal explanations. Thus, the systems approach promises to provide a naturalistic-cum-descriptive account of teleology suitable for use in naturalistic accounts of other phenomena, including the intentionality of mental states and even self-consciousness. (shrink)

In this essay we aim to present some considerations regarding a minimal but concrete notion of agency and goal-directed behavior that are useful for characterizing biological systems at different scales. These considerations are a particular perspective, bringing together concepts from dynamical systems, combinatorial problem-solving, and connectionist learning with an emphasis on the relationship between parts and wholes. This perspective affords some ways to think about agents that are concrete and quantifiable, and relevant to some important biological issues. Instead (...) of advocating for a strict definition of minimally agential characteristics, we focus on how (even for a modest notion of agency) the agency of a system can be more than the sum of the agency of its parts. We quantify this in terms of the problem-solving competency of a system with respect to resolution of the frustrations between its parts. This requires goal-directed behavior in the sense of delayed gratification, i.e., taking dynamical trajectories that forego short-term gains (or sustain short-term stress or frustration) in favor of long-term gains. In order for this competency to belong to the system (rather than to its parts or given by its construction or design), it can involve distributed systemic knowledge that is acquired through experience, i.e., changes in the organization of the relationships among its parts (without presupposing a system-level reward function for such changes). This conception of agency helps us think about the ways in which cells, organisms, and perhaps other biological scales, can be agential (i.e., more agential than their parts) in a quantifiable sense, without denying that the behavior of the whole depends on the behaviors of the parts in their current organization. (shrink)

Argues for a constraint on a proper theory of motivation – namely, that proper motivational explanations of goal‐directed actions are causal explanations. The chapter criticizes the thesis that acceptable teleological explanations of actions are not causal explanations and it offers a solution to a problem that deviant causal chains pose for a causal theory of action.

The process of assessing executive functions through behavioral observation scales is still under theoretical and empirical construction. This article reports on the analysis of the factorial structure of the EOCL-1 scale that assesses executive functions, as proposed by the theory developed by Luria, which has not been previously considered in this type of evaluation. In this scale, the executive functions taken into account are error correction, internal behavioral and cognition regulatory language, limbic system conscious regulation, decision making, future consideration of (...) consequences of actions, goal-directed behavior, inhibitory control of automatic responses, creation of new behavioral repertoires, and cognitive–behavioral activity verification. A variety of validity and reliability analyses were carried out, with the following results: an adequate internal consistency level of executive functions between α = 0.70 and α = 0.83, significant convergent validity with a scale that assesses frontal deficits between r = −0.07 and r = 0.28, and the scale’s construct validity that proposes a model with an executive central factor comparative fit index = 0.93, root mean square error of approximation = 0.04, standardized root mean square residual = 0.04, and x2 = 789.29, p = 0.001. The findings are discussed based on previous literature reports and in terms of the benefits of using a scale to assess the proposed executive functions. (shrink)

Detecting and correcting execution errors is crucial for safe and efficient goal-directed behavior. Despite intensive investigations on error processing, the cognitive foundations of this process remain unclear. Based on the presumed relation between executive attention and error processing, we implemented a seven-day EA intervention by adopting the Posner cueing paradigm to test the potential causal link from EA to error processing in healthy adults. The experimental group was trained on the Posner cueing paradigm, with a ratio of invalid (...) cue trials to valid cue trials of 5:1 and a corresponding ratio of 1:1 in the active control group. We found that the EA intervention improved EA across intervention sessions. Critically, after the EA intervention, the HEA group showed that post-error accuracy was restored to the same level as the post-correct accuracy. However, post-error slowing and the flanker effect were not modulated by the EA intervention. Furthermore, we observed that the changes in the accuracy of VC trials positively predicted the changes in PEA and that the two groups were classified according to the changes in PEA with a 61.3% accuracy. Based on these results, we propose that EA causally drives error processing. And the capabilities of the “actively catch” more attention resources and the automatic mismatch processing developed after EA intervention is transferable to error processing, thereby directly resulting in the gains in post-error adjustments. Our work informs the potential cognitive mechanisms underlying this causal link. (shrink)

The current conceptualization of working memory highlights its pivotal role in the cognitive control of goal-directed behaviour, for example, by keeping task-priorities and relevant information ‘online’. Evidence has accumulated, however, that working memory contents can automatically misdirect attention and observers can only exert little intentional control to overcome irrelevant contents held in memory that are known to be misleading for behaviour. The authors discuss extant evidence on this topic and argue that obligatory functional coupling between working memory and (...) attentional selection reflects a default property of the brain which is hardwired in overlapping substrates for memory and perception. They further argue that the neuroanatomical substrates for working memory biases in vision are distinct from the classical fronto-parietal networks involved in attentional control and distinct from the mechanisms that mediate attention biases from long-term memory. Finally the authors present emerging evidence that working memory ‘guiding’ processes may operate outside conscious awareness. (shrink)

This research explores the role of emotions in goal-directed behaviour. A model is provided for an emotional goal system whereby appraisals of the consequences of achieving or not achieving a goal are hypothesised to elicit anticipatory emotions; the anticipatory emotions are expected, in turn, to contribute to volitions in the service of goal pursuit (namely, intentions, plans, and the decision to expend energy); goal-directed behaviours next arise in response to volitions and lead to (...) goal attainment; and the latter then functions as the basis for a new set of appraisals and accompanying goaloutcome emotions. The model was tested in a longitudinal study of the responses of 406 adults (243 women, 163 men) in The Netherlands. The context for the study was the regulation of one's bodyweight via exercising and dieting. (shrink)

Goal Directed Proof Theory presents a uniform and coherent methodology for automated deduction in non-classical logics, the relevance of which to computer science is now widely acknowledged. The methodology is based on goal-directed provability. It is a generalization of the logic programming style of deduction, and it is particularly favourable for proof search. The methodology is applied for the first time in a uniform way to a wide range of non-classical systems, covering intuitionistic, intermediate, modal and (...) substructural logics. The book can also be used as an introduction to these logical systems form a procedural perspective. Readership: Computer scientists, mathematicians and philosophers, and anyone interested in the automation of reasoning based on non-classical logics. The book is suitable for self study, its only prerequisite being some elementary knowledge of logic and proof theory. (shrink)

This volume presents chapters from internationally renowned scholars in the area of goals and social behavior.

In this paper, we propose a decidable single-agent modal logic for reasoning about goal-directed “knowing how”, based on ideas from linguistics, philosophy, modal logic, and automated planning in AI. We first define a modal language to express “I know how to guarantee \ given \” with a semantics based not on standard epistemic models but on labeled transition systems that represent the agent’s knowledge of his own abilities. The semantics is inspired by conformant planning in AI. A sound (...) and complete proof system is given to capture valid reasoning patterns, which highlights the compositional nature of “knowing how”. The logical language is further extended to handle knowing how to achieve a goal while maintaining other conditions. (shrink)

Grice in pragmatics and Levelt in psycholinguistics have proposed models of human communication where the starting point of communicative action is an individual intention. This assumption, though, has to face serious objections with regard to the alleged existence of explicit representations of the communicative goals to be pursued. Here evidence is surveyed which shows that in fact speaking may ordinarily be a quite automatic activity prompted by contextual cues and driven by behavioural schemata abstracted away from social regularities. On the (...) one hand, this means that there could exist no intentions in the sense of explicit representations of communicative goals, following from deliberate reasoning and triggering the communicative action. On the other hand, however, there are reasons to allow for a weaker notion of intention than this, according to which communication is an intentional affair, after all. Communicative action is said to be intentional in this weaker sense to the extent that it is subject to a double mechanism of control, with respect both to present-directed and future-directed intentions. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Investigating Extended Embodiment Using a Computational Model and Human Experimentation” by Yuki Sato, Hiroyuki Iizuka & Takashi Ikegami. Upshot: The target article’s findings on the focus of attention in extending an agent’s body schema are consistent with those in developmental psychology and neuroscience on goal-directed action. The consequences of these findings are that embodiment can be extended in a variety of ways, not all of which require direct physical manipulation.

Although activity aimed at the construction of artificial intelligence started about 60 years ago however, contemporary intelligent systems are effective in very narrow domains only. One of the reasons for this situation appears to be serious problems in the theory of intelligence. Intelligence is a characteristic of goal-directed systems and two classes of goal-directed systems can be derived from observations on animals and humans, one class is systems with innately and jointly determined goals and means. The (...) other class contains systems that are able to construct arbitrary goals and means. It is suggested that the classes (that implicitly underlie most models of artificial intelligence) are insufficient to explain human goal-directed activity. A broader approach to goal-directed systems is considered. This approach suggests that humans are goal-directed systems that jointly synthesize arbitrary goals and means. Neural and psychological data favoring this hypothesis and its experimental validation are considered. A simple computer model based on the idea of joint synthesis to simulate goal-directed activity is presented. The usage of the idea of joint synthesis for the construction of artificial intelligence is discussed. (shrink)

We believe that the task goal in voluntary movements provides meaning to existing information sources in the environment and determines, in a dynamic way, the use and relative importance of these different sources. This task-centered meaning bridges the apparent controversy between what information is available in principle (i.e., specification), and what information is perceived.

This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmentalpathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internalmodeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple actionalternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of executivefunctions such as inhibition, the monitoring of progresses, and working memory, arerequired (...) for this system to work. Further, we elaborate on the idea that the off-line re-enactment of anticipatory mechanisms used for action control gives rise to (embodied)mental simulations, and propose that thinking consists essentially in controlling mental simulations rather than directly controlling behavior and perceptions. We concludeby sketching an evolutionary perspective of this process, proposing that anticipationleveraged cognition, and by highlighting specific predictions of our model. (shrink)

Emerging evidence suggests that the long-established distinction between habit-based and goal-directed decision-making mechanisms can also be sustained in humans. Although the habit-based system has been extensively studied in humans, the goal-directed system is less well characterized. This review brings to that task the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual representational mechanisms. Conceptual representations are structured out of semantic consituents - the use of which requires an ability to perform some language-like syntactic processing. Decision making - as investigated (...) by neuroscience and psychology - is normally studied in isolation from questions about concepts as studied in philosophy and cognitive psychology. We ask what role concepts play in the "goal-directed" decision-making systems. We argue that one fruitful way of studying this system in humans is to investigate the extent to which it deploys conceptual representations. (shrink)

Our view is that fundamental appetitive and defensive motivation systems evolved to mediate a complex array of adaptive behaviors that support the organism’s drive to survive—defending against threat and securing resources. Activation of these motive systems engages processes that facilitate attention allocation, information intake, sympathetic arousal, and, depending on context, will prompt tactical actions that can be directed either toward or away from the strategic goal, whether defensively or appetitively determined. Research from our laboratory that measures autonomic, central, (...) and somatic reactions when processing emotional scenes is described which indicates that motivationally relevant cues, whether appetitive or defensive, capture attention preferentially, prompt enhanced perceptual processing and information gathering, and occasion metabolic arousal that mobilizes the organism for coping actions. (shrink)

Recent findings in empirical psychology show that implicit biases can affect behavior in ways that are difficult to control deliberatively. Doris argues that findings like these constitute a threat to agency, if agency is defined as the ability to reflectively, deliberatively direct one’s actions. I argue, however, that implicit biases pose no fundamental threat to agency since they can be brought under indirect deliberative control, whereby deliberative, reflective actions put in place automatic processes that automatically inhibit unwanted biases. Since automatic (...) processes can be thus used to achieve deliberatively, reflectively endorsed goals, agency should be defined as the ability to act in line with reflectively endorsed goals, whether by deliberative or automatic processes. (shrink)