Motivated control refers to the coordination of behaviour to achieve affectively valenced outcomes or goals. The study of motivated control traditionally assumes a distinction between control and motivational processes, which map to distinct (dorsolateral versus ventromedial) brain systems. However, the respective roles and interactions between these processes remain controversial. We offer a novel perspective that casts control and motivational processes as complementary aspects − goal propagation and prioritization, respectively − of active inference and hierarchical goal processing under deep generative models. We propose that the control hierarchy propagates prior preferences or goals, but their precision is informed by the motivational context, inferred at different levels of the motivational hierarchy. The ensuing integration of control and motivational processes underwrites action and policy selection and, ultimately, motivated behaviour, by enabling deep inference to prioritize goals in a context-sensitive way.
Hierarchical Active Inference: A Theory of Motivated Control
G. Pezzulo,Francesco Rigoli,Karl J. Friston
Published 2018 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2018
- Venue
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publication date
2018-04-01
- Fields of study
Medicine, Computer Science, Psychology
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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