Artificial motives: a review of motivation in artificial creatures

The significance of the motivational determinants of animal and human behav iour has been recognized for some time by psychologists, ethologists and ot her students of behaviour. The diversity of mechanisms and processes which have been proposed as explanations of motivated behaviour reflects the dept h and complexity of this issue. In recent years, researchers interested in designing artificial creatures and similar robotic devices have turned to t hese theories of motivation as a means of making their creations more adapt ive to real-world situations. This paper outlines some of the pertinent str ands of motivation research in animal psychology and animal behaviour; topi cs considered include ethological models of motivation and psychological ac counts such as drive theory and incentive motivation. These theories provid e the framework for a review of artefactual models which include a motivati onal dimension in artificial neural and other parallel distributed animat c ontrol mechanisms. The paper goes on to explore the potential of an interac tive view of motivation, adopted by theorists such as F. Toates (1986, Moti vational Systems, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), as the basis for identifying the problems of including a motivational dimension in the desig n of artificial creatures, e.g. the issue of 'emergent motivation'.