What's in a goal? The role of motivational relevance in cognition and action

Abstract

We argue that it is possible to go beyond the "selfish goal" metaphor and make an even stronger case for the role of unconscious motivation in cognition and action. Through the relevance of a representation (ROAR) framework, we describe how not only value motivation, which relates to "selfish goals," but also truth motivation and control motivation impact cognition and action.

Seeing without knowing: task relevance dissociates between visual awareness and recognition

“…They further suggest that selection that is based on task relevance occurs for recognition but does not occur (or occurs to a lesser degree) for visual awareness. As detailed in the Introduction section, both the finding that task relevance is a powerful factor that mediates selection processes, and the finding that this selection affects recognition but not phenomenal awareness, are consistent with the ROAR framework …”

“…As detailed in the Introduction section, both the finding that task relevance is a powerful factor that mediates selection processes, and the finding that this selection affects recognition but not phenomenal awareness, are consistent with the ROAR framework. 1,8 A possible interaction between relevance and load It is important to note, however, that we do not argue that people are visually aware of everything. In particular, we do not argue that phenomenal awareness is always greater than its corresponding knowledge activation.…”

“…We argue that visual awareness without recognition may occur with stimuli that are currently task irrelevant. Reviewing the social–cognitive literature on the effects of priming, Eitam and Higgins recently proposed that knowledge activation is modulated by its motivational relevance . Specifically, they proposed that, although incoming stimuli may potentiate corresponding internal representations (e.g., semantic representations), whether these representations will eventually be available for cognitive processing depends on the outcome of a process that evaluates their degree of relevance (e.g., for the task at hand)—only sufficiently relevant representations become functionally active.…”

“…Reviewing the social-cognitive literature on the effects of priming, Eitam and Higgins recently proposed that knowledge activation is modulated by its motivational relevance. 1,3,8 Specifically, they proposed that, although incoming stimuli may potentiate corresponding internal representations (e.g., semantic representations), whether these representations will eventually be available for cognitive processing b We use "knowledge activation"-as it is commonly used in the social-cognitive literature-to refer to available (but latent) high-level (semantic, abstract) knowledge becoming functionally available to cognitive subsystems. Unlike how some priming studies are explained (i.e., as response priming), it enables explanation of more intricate priming effects (e.g., effects of priming on person perception, effects of priming on problem solving).…”

From reaction (‘priming’) to motivated selection: changing conceptualizations of accessibility

“…Note that this is true even though the conditions for encoding, retention and elaboration were not affected in anyway because this information processing occurred before this new feedback information was given. This effect is consistent with the ROAR framework because the later feedback about a failure to create shared reality can still reduce the truth relevance of the message, thereby reducing its accessibility and thus its impact on recall (see also Higgins & Eitam, 2014). A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 9 (e.g., the outer of two differently colored concentric circles) led to 'blindness' to the information appearing in the second location (task irrelevant location).…”