The Mind of the Hungry Agent: Hunger, Affect and Appetite

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of how hunger motivates us to seek food and eat. It seems that the way that it feels to be hungry must play some role in it fulfilling this function. We propose that hunger is best viewed as a complex state involving both affective (viz., hedonic) and somatic constituents, as well as, crucially, changes in the way in which the hungry agent’s attention is deployed. We argue that in order to capture the distinctive way in which hunger motivates we need to articulate the relations amongst such components. The resulting account explains how hunger as an aversive affective reaction to a state of need motivates us specifically to eat and not to just to rid ourselves of the unpleasant sensations associated to it. We suggest, however, that there is more than this to the overall affective experience of the hungry agent, because hunger ordinarily facilitates the elicitation of other, positive affective reactions such as interest and appetite, and recruits them to further its function.

The Human Affectome

“…In the English language, different feeling words along this dimension typically capture the intensity or degree of departure from the organism’s comfort zone. Physiological affective states may pertain to nourishment (e.g., hungry or thirsty; Ombrato and Phillips, 2021 ), energy levels (e.g., rejuvenated; Podilchak, 1991 ; Caldwell, 2005 ; Iwasaki et al, 2005 ), and internal bodily concerns (e.g., sick; Quadt et al, 2018 ; pain; Coninx and Stilwell, 2021 ; Kiverstein et al, 2022 ), among others. Algorithms addressing physiological concerns seem to be what we tend to refer to as sensation .…”

Mind Perception in HRI: Exploring Users’ Attribution of Mental and Emotional States to Robots with Different Behavioural Styles

“…Interestingly, the Friendly interaction style was judged as more capable to express Hunger than the other two interaction styles. It should be noted that the feeling of hunger is inherently motivating since it recruits positive emotions, namely affective interest, desire, and excitement [ 29 ].…”

The Force of Habit

“…The example of pain is instructive, because it is natural to think that the imagined theory fails to provide an account of the force of pain – its capacity to motivate Jane to engage in a fairly particular set of pain‐related behaviours. Similarly, a theory of hunger must provide an account of the motivational explanatory force of being hungry (Ombrato & Phillips, 2020). The same goes for a theory of desire (Baker, 2017; Schafer, 2013).…”