Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T09:21:35.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Incentive hope: A default psychological response to multiple forms of uncertainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2019

Patrick Anselme  and
Onur Güntürkün
Patrick Anselme
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, Department of Biopsychology, University of Bochum, D-44801 Bochum, [email protected]@ruhr-uni-bochum.dewww.bio.psy.rub.de
Onur Güntürkün
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology, Department of Biopsychology, University of Bochum, D-44801 Bochum, [email protected]@ruhr-uni-bochum.dewww.bio.psy.rub.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our target article proposes that a new concept – incentive hope – is necessary in the behavioral sciences to explain animal foraging under harsh environmental conditions. Incentive hope refers to a specific motivational mechanism in the brain – considered only in mammals and birds. But it can also be understood at a functional level, as an adaptive behavioral strategy that contributes to improve survival. Thus, this concept is an attempt to bridge across different research fields such as behavioral psychology, reward neuroscience, and behavioral ecology. Many commentaries suggest that incentive hope even could help understand phenomena beyond these research fields, including food wasting and food sharing, mental energy conservation, diverse psychopathologies, irrational decisions in invertebrates, and some aspects of evolution by means of sexual selection. We are favorable to such extensions because incentive hope denotes an unconscious process capable of working against many forms of adversity; organisms do not need to hope as a subjective feeling, but to behave as if they had this feeling. In our response, we carefully discuss each suggestion and criticism and reiterate the importance of having a theory accounting for motivation under reward uncertainty.

Type
Authors' Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e58
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amita, H. & Matsushima, T. (2014) Competitor suppresses neuronal representation of food reward in the nucleus accumbens/medial striatum of domestic chicks. Behavioural Brain Research 268:139–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2014.04.004.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. (2015a) Incentive salience attribution under reward uncertainty: A Pavlovian model. Behavioural Processes 111:6–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2014.10.016.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. (2015b) Enhanced exploratory activity in woodlice exposed to random visuo-tactile patterns. Learning and Motivation 50:48–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2014.09.002.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. (2016) Motivational control of sign-tracking behaviour: A theoretical framework. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 65:1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.03.014.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. (2018a) Uncertainty processing in bees exposed to free choices: Lessons from vertebrates. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 25(6):2024–36. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1441-x.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. (2018b) Gambling hijacks an ancestral motivational system shaped by natural selection. In: Sign-tracking and drug addiction, ed. Tomie, A. & Morrow, J., ch. 5. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Anselme, P. & Robinson, M. J. F. (2016) “Wanting,” “liking,” and their relation to consciousness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 42:123–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xan0000090.Google Scholar
Anselme, P., Robinson, M. J. F. & Berridge, K. C. (2013) Reward uncertainty enhances incentive salience attribution as sign-tracking. Behavioural Brain Research 238:53–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2012.10.006.Google Scholar
Arditi, R. & Dacorogna, B. (1988) Optimal foraging on arbitrary food distributions and the definition of habitat patches. The American Naturalist 131:837–46.Google Scholar
Bauer, C. M., Glassman, L. W., Cyr, N. E. & Romero, L. M. (2011) Effects of predictable and unpredictable food restriction on the stress response in molting and non-molting European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A 160:390–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cbpa.2011.07.009.Google Scholar
Berridge, K. C. (2012) From prediction error to incentive salience: Mesolimbic computation of reward motivation. European Journal of Neuroscience 35:1124–43. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2012.07990.x.Google Scholar
Bettinger, R. L., Garvey, R. & Tushingham, S. (2015) Hunter-gatherers. Archeological and evolutionary theory. Springer.Google Scholar
Charnov, E. L. (1976b) Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem. Theoretical Population Biology 9:129–36. doi: 10.1016/0040-5809(76)90040-X.Google Scholar
Cheon, B. K. & Hong, Y.-Y. (2017) Mere experience of low subjective socioeconomic status stimulates appetite and food intake. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 114:72–77. Available at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1607330114.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1976) The selfish gene. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dener, E., Kacelnik, A. & Shemesh, H. (2016) Pea plants show risk sensitivity. Current Biology 26:1763–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.05.008.Google Scholar
Eilam, D., Zor, R., Szechtman, H. & Hermesh, H. (2006) Rituals, stereotypy and compulsive behavior in animals and humans. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 30:456–71. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.08.003.Google Scholar
Fernández-Juricic, E., Siller, S. & Kacelnik, A. (2004) Flock density, social foraging, and scanning: An experiment with starlings. Behavioral Ecology 3:371–79. doi: 10.1093/beheco/arh017.Google Scholar
Flagel, S. B., Robinson, T. E., Clark, J. J., Clinton, S. M., Watson, S. J., Seeman, P., Phillips, P. E. M. & Akil, H. (2010) An animal model of genetic vulnerability to behavioral disinhibition and responsiveness to reward-related cues: Implications for addiction. Neuropsychopharmacology 35:388–400. doi: 10.1038/npp.2009.142.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, D. A. (2005) Acquisition with partial and continuous reinforcement in rat magazine approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 31:319–33.Google Scholar
Hart, A. S., Clark, J. J. & Phillips, P. E. M. (2015) Dynamic shaping of dopamine signals during probabilistic Pavlovian conditioning. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 117:84–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2014.07.010.Google Scholar
Hennessey, T. M., Rucker, W. B. & McDiarmid, C. G. (1979) Classical conditioning in paramecia. Animal Learning and Behavior 7:417–23.Google Scholar
Inoue, T., Tsuchya, K. & Koyama, T. (1994) Regional changes in dopamine and serotonin activation with various intensity of physical and psychological stress in the rat brain. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 49:911–20.Google Scholar
Kacelnik, A. & Bateson, M. (1996) Risky theories: The effects of variance on foraging decisions. American Zoologist 36:402–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/36.4.402.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979) Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47:263–92.Google Scholar
Keeling, L. & Jensen, P. (2002) Behavioural disturbances, stress and welfare. In: The ethology of domestic animals, ed. Jensen, P., pp. 79–98. Cabi.Google Scholar
Kuhn, B. N., Campus, P. & Flagel, S. B. (2018) The neurobiological mechanisms underlying sign-tracking behavior. In: Sign-tracking and drug addiction, ed. Tomie, A. & Morrow, J.. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Laran, J. & Salerno, A. (2013) Life-history strategy, food choice, and caloric consumption. Psychological Science 24:167–73. doi: 10.1177/0956797612450033.Google Scholar
Latty, T. & Beekman, M. (2011a) Irrational decision-making in an amoeboid organism: Transitivity and context-dependent preferences. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278(1703):307–12.Google Scholar
Laurent, V., Balleine, B. W. & Westbrook, R. F. (2018) Motivational state controls the prediction error in Pavlovian appetitive-aversive interactions. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 147:18–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2017.11.006.Google Scholar
Lemos, J. C., Wanat, M. J., Smith, J. S., Reyes, B. A. S., Hollon, N. G., Van Bockstaele, E. J., Chavkin, C. & Phillips, P. E. M. (2012) Severe stress switches CRF action in the nucleus accumbens from appetitive to aversive. Nature 490:402–406. doi: 10.1038/nature11436.Google Scholar
Marasco, V., Boner, W., Heidinger, B., Griffiths, K. & Monaghan, P. (2015) Repeated exposure to stressful conditions can have beneficial effects on survival. Experimental Gerontology 69:170–75.Google Scholar
Mascia, P., Neugebauer, N. M., Brown, J., Bubula, N., Nesbitt, K. M., Kennedy, R. T. & Vezina, P. (2019) Exposure to conditions of uncertainty promotes the pursuit of amphetamine. Neuropsychopharmacology 44(2):274–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0099-4.Google Scholar
McDevitt, M. A., Dunn, R. M., Spetch, M. L. & Ludvig, E. A. (2016) When good news leads to bad choices. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 105(1):23–40. http://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.192.Google Scholar
Meyer, P. J., Cogan, E. S. & Robinson, T. E. (2014) The form of a conditioned stimulus can influence the degree to which it acquires incentive motivational properties. PLoS ONE 9:e98163. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098163.Google Scholar
Meyer, P. J., Lovic, V., Saunders, B. T., Yager, L. M., Flagel, S. B., Morrow, J. D. & Robinson, T. E. (2012) Quantifying individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. PLoS ONE 7:e38987. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038987.Google Scholar
Meyer, P. J. & Tripi, J. A. (2018) Sign-tracking, response inhibition, and drug-induced vocalizations. In: Sign-tracking and drug addiction, ed. Tomie, A. & Morrow, J.. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Nettle, D., Andrews, C. & Bateson, M. (2017) Food insecurity as a driver of obesity in humans: The insurance hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40:E105. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X16000947.Google Scholar
Norris, P. & Inglehart, R. (2011) Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oettingen, G. & Chromik, M. P. (2018) How hope influences goal-directed behavior. In: The Oxford handbook of hope, ed. Gallagher, M. W. & Lopez, S. J., Ch. 6, pp. 69–79. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ogura, Y., Izumi, T., Yoshioka, M. & Matsushima, T. (2015) Dissociation of the neural substrates of foraging effort and its social facilitation in the domestic chick. Behavioural Brain Research 294:162–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2015.07.052.Google Scholar
Ogura, Y. & Matsushima, T. (2011) Social facilitation revisited: Increase in foraging efforts and synchronization of running in domestic chicks. Frontiers in Neuroscience 5:91. 10.3389/fnins.2011.00091.Google Scholar
Pankseep, J. (1998) Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paolone, G., Angelakos, C. C., Meyer, P. J., Robinson, T. E. & Sarter, M. (2013) Cholinergic control over attention in rats prone to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Journal of Neuroscience 33:8321–35. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0709-13.2013.Google Scholar
Peciña, S. & Berridge, K. C. (2013) Dopamine or opioid stimulation of nucleus accumbens similarly amplify cue-triggered “wanting” for reward: Entire core and medial shell mapped as substrates for PIT enhancement. European Journal of Neuroscience 37:1529–40. doi: 10.1111/ejn.12174.Google Scholar
Pepper, G. V. & Nettle, D. (2017) The behavioural constellation of deprivation: Causes and consequences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40:1–66. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X1600234X.Google Scholar
Perry, C. J. & Barron, A. B. (2013) Neural mechanisms of reward in insects. Annual Review of Entomology 58:543–62.Google Scholar
Raichlen, D. A., Wood, B. M., Gordon, A. D., Mabulla, A. Z. P., Marlowe, F. W. & Pontzer, H. (2014) Evidence of Lévy walk foraging patterns in human hunter-gatherers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:728–33. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318616111.Google Scholar
Real, L. A., Ott, J. & Silverfine, E. (1982) On the trade-off between mean and variance in foraging: An experimental analysis with bumblebees. Ecology 63:1617–23.Google Scholar
Reneerkens, J., Piersma, T. & Ramenofsky, M. (2002) An experimental test of the relationship between temporal variability of feeding opportunities and baseline levels of corticosterone in a shorebird. Journal of Experimental Zoology 293:81–88. doi: 10.1002/jez.10113.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. (1996) Why individual vigilance declines as group size increases. Animal Behaviour 51:1077–86.Google Scholar
Robinson, M. J. F., Anselme, P., Suchomel, K. & Berridge, K. C. (2015a) Amphetamine-induced sensitization and reward uncertainty similarly enhance the incentive salience of conditioned cues. Behavioral Neuroscience 129:502–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bne0000064.Google Scholar
Robinson, M. J. F., Burghardt, P. R., Patterson, C. M., Nobile, C. W., Akil, H., Watson, S. J., Berridge, K. C. & Ferrario, C. R. (2015b) Individual differences in cue-induced motivation and striatal systems in rats susceptible to diet-induced obesity. Neuropsychopharmacology 40:2113–23.Google Scholar
Schmickl, T. & Crailsheim, K. (2004) Costs of environmental fluctuations and benefits of dynamic decentralized foraging decisions in honey bees. Adaptive Behavior 12:263–77.Google Scholar
Schultz, W. (1998) Predictive reward signal of dopamine neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology 80:1–27.Google Scholar
Shapiro, M. S., Siller, S. & Kacelnik, A. (2008) Simultaneous and sequential choice as a function of reward delay and magnitude: Normative, descriptive and process-based models tested in the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 34:75–93.Google Scholar
Sinha, R. & Jastreboff, A. N. (2013) Stress as a common risk factor for obesity and addiction. Biological Psychiatry 73:827–35.Google Scholar
Snyder, C. R. (1994) The psychology of hope: You can get there from here. Free Press.Google Scholar
Soussignan, R., Schaal, B., Boulanger, V., Gaillet, M. & Jiang, T. (2012) Orofacial reactivity to the sight and smell of food stimuli. Evidence for anticipatory liking related to food reward cues in overweight children. Appetite 58:508–516.Google Scholar
Søvik, E., Perry, C. J. & Barron, A. B. (2015) Insect reward systems: Comparing flies and bees. Advances in Insect Physiology 48:189–226. doi: 10.1016/bs.aiip.2014.12.006.Google Scholar
Testart, A., Forbis, R. G., Hayden, B., Ingold, T., Perlman, S. M., Pokotylo, D. L., Rowley-Conwy, P. & Stuart, D. E. (1982) The significance of food storage among hunter-gatherers: Residence patterns, population densities, and social inequalities. Current Anthropology 23:523–37. https://doi.org/10.1086/202894.Google Scholar
Vásquez, R. A. & Kacelnik, A. (2000) Foraging rate versus sociality in the starling Sturnus vulgaris. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 267:157–64.Google Scholar
Wassum, K. M., Ostlund, S. B., Loewinger, G. C. & Maidment, N. T. (2013) Phasic mesolimbic dopamine release tracks reward seeking during expression of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer. Biological Psychiatry 73:747–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.12.005.Google Scholar
Yin, H. H. & Knowlton, B. J. (2006) The role of the basal ganglia in habit formation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7:464–76. 10.1038/nrn1919.Google Scholar