How fast to work: Response vigor, motivation and tonic dopamine

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

85 Scopus citations

Abstract

Reinforcement learning models have long promised to unify computational, psychological and neural accounts of appetitively conditioned behavior. However, the bulk of data on animal conditioning comes from free-operant experiments measuring how fast animals will work for reinforcement. Existing reinforcement learning (RL) models are silent about these tasks, because they lack any notion of vigor. They thus fail to address the simple observation that hungrier animals will work harder for food, as well as stranger facts such as their sometimes greater productivity even when working for irrelevant outcomes such as water. Here, we develop an RL framework for free-operant behavior, suggesting that subjects choose how vigorously to perform selected actions by optimally balancing the costs and benefits of quick responding. Motivational states such as hunger shift these factors, skewing the tradeoff. This accounts normatively for the effects of motivation on response rates, as well as many other classic findings. Finally, we suggest that tonic levels of dopamine may be involved in the computation linking motivational state to optimal responding, thereby explaining the complex vigor-related effects of pharmacological manipulation of dopamine.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems 18 - Proceedings of the 2005 Conference
Pages1019-1026
Number of pages8
StatePublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes
Event2005 Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NIPS 2005 - Vancouver, BC, Canada
Duration: Dec 5 2005Dec 8 2005

Publication series

NameAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems
ISSN (Print)1049-5258

Other

Other2005 Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NIPS 2005
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver, BC
Period12/5/0512/8/05

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems
  • Signal Processing

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