Abstract—Exploratory activities seem to be intrinsically rewarding for children and crucial for their cognitive development. Can a machine be endowed with such an intrinsic motivation system? This is the question we study in this paper, presenting a number of computational systems that try to capture this drive towards novel or curious situations. After discussing related research coming from developmental psychology, neuroscience, developmental robotics, and active learning, this paper presents the mechanism of Intelligent Adaptive Curiosity, an intrinsic motivation system which pushes a robot towards situations in which it maximizes its learning progress. This drive makes the robot focus on situations which are neither too predictable nor too unpredictable, thus permitting autonomous mental development. The complexity of the robot’s activities autonomously increases and complex developmental sequences self-organize without

When on the move, cognitive resources are reserved partly for passively monitoring and reacting to contexts and events, and partly for actively constructing them. The Resource Competition Framework (RCF), building on the Multiple Resources Theory, explains how psychosocial tasks typical of mobile situations compete for cognitive resources and then suggests that this leads to the depletion of resources for task interaction and eventually results in the breakdown of fluent interaction. RCF predictions were tested in a semi-naturalistic field study measuring attention during the performance of assigned Web search tasks on mobile phone while moving through nine varied but typical urban situations. Notably, we discovered up to eight-fold differentials between micro-level measurements of attentional resource fragmentation, for example from spans of over 16 seconds in a laboratory condition dropping to bursts of just a few seconds in difficult mobile situations. By calibrating perceptual sampling, reducing resource usage for tasks of secondary importance, and resisting the impulse to switch tasks before finalization, participants compensated for the resource depletion. The findings are compared to previous studies in office contexts. The work is valuable in many areas of HCI dealing with mobility. ACM Classification Keywords: H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous

Employees are motivated intrinsically as well as extrinsically. Intrinsic motivation is crucial when tacit knowledge in and between teams must be transferred. Organizational forms enable different kinds of motivation and have different capacities to generate and transfer tacit knowledge. Since knowledge generation and transfer are essential for a firm s sustainable competitive advantage, we ask specifically what kinds of motivation are needed to generate and transfer tacit knowledge, as opposed to explicit knowledge.

This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broaden-and-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed. Even though research on emotions has this new perspective are featured. My hope is flourished in recent years, investigations that that this article will unlock scientific curiosity expressly target positive emotions remain few about positive emotions, not only to test the and far between. Any review of the psychologi- ideas presented here, but also to build other new cal literature on emotions will show that models that might illuminate the nature and psychologists have typically favored negative value of positive emotions. Psychology sorely emotions in theory building and hypothesis needs more studies on positive emotions, not testing. In so doing, psychologists have inadver- simply to level the uneven knowledge bases tently marginalized the emotions, such as joy, between negative and positive emotions, but interest, contentment, and love, that share a more critically, to guide applications and pleasant subjective feel. To date, then, psycholo- interventions that might improve individual and gy's knowledge base regarding positive emo- collective functioning, psychological welltions is so thin that satisfying answers to the question "What good are positive emotions?" have yet to be articulated. This is unfortunate. being, and physical health. Experiences of positive emotion are central to Why Have Positive Emotions human nature and contribute richly to the quality of people's lives (Diener & Larsen, Been Marginalized? 1993; Myers & Diener, 1995). But how? In At this point, it might be useful to inspect

In this paper we provide experimental evidence indicating that incentive contracts may cause a strong crowding out of reciprocity-driven voluntary cooperation. This crowding out effect constitutes costs of incentive provision that have been largely neglected by economists. In our experiments the crowding out effect is so strong that the incentive contracts are less efficient than contracts without any incentives. Principals, nonetheless, prefer the incentive contracts because they allow them to appropriate a much larger share of the (smaller) total surplus and are, hence, more profitable for them.

An integrative framework, designed to organize the heterogeneous constructs related to "'control'; is based on 2 fundamental distinctions: (a) objective, subjective, and experiences of controt; and (b) agents, means, and ends of control. The framework is used to analyze more than 100 terms, such as sense of control, proxy control, and primary control. It is argued that although many terms reflect aspects of perceived control (both distinct and overlapping), some are more usefully considered aspects of objective control conditions (e.g., contingency), potential antecedents of perceived control (e.g., choice), potential consequences (e.g., secondary control), sources of motivation for control (e.g., mastery), or other sources of motivation (e.g., autonomy). Implications for theory, measure-ment, research, and intervention are explored. Control is important to psychological functioning. Decades of research in sociology and psychology have demonstrated that a sense of control is a robust predictor of physical and mental

Intrinsic motivation, the causal mechanism for spontaneous exploration and curiosity, is a central concept in developmental psychology. It has been argued to be a crucial mechanism for open-ended cognitive development in humans, and as such has gathered a growing interest from developmental roboticists in the recent years. The goal of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a synthesis of the different approaches of intrinsic motivation in psychology. Second, by interpreting these approaches in a computational reinforcement learning framework, we argue that they are not operational and even sometimes inconsistent. Third, we set the ground for a systematic operational study of intrinsic motivation by presenting a formal typology of possible computational approaches. This typology is partly based on existing computational models, but also presents new ways of conceptualizing intrinsic motivation. We argue that this kind of computational typology might be useful for opening new avenues for research both in psychology and developmental robotics.

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Intrinsic motivation is a crucial mechanism for open-ended cognitive development since it is the driver of spontaneous exploration and curiosity. Yet, it has so far only been conceptualized in ad hoc manners in the epigenetic robotics community. After reviewing different approaches to intrinsic motivation in psychology, this paper presents a unified definition of intrinsic motivation, based on the theory of Daniel Berlyne. Based on this definition, we propose a landscape of types of computational approaches, making it possible to position existing and future models relative to each other, and we show that important approaches are still to be explored. 1.

Abstract. Ubiquitous computing technologies create new opportunities for preventive healthcare researchers to deploy behavior modification strategies outside of clinical settings. In this paper, we describe how strategies for motivating behavior change might be embedded within usage patterns of a typical electronic device. This interaction model differs substantially from prior approaches to behavioral modification such as CD-ROMs: sensor-enabled technology can drive interventions that are timelier, tailored, subtle, and even fun. To explore these ideas, we developed a prototype system named ViTo. On one level, ViTo functions as a universal remote control for a home entertainment system. The interface of this device, however, is designed in such a way that it may unobtrusively promote a reduction in the user’s television viewing while encouraging an increase in the frequency and quantity of non-sedentary activities. The design of ViTo demonstrates how a variety of behavioral science strategies for motivating behavior change can be carefully woven into the operation of a common consumer electronic device. Results of an exploratory evaluation of a single participant using the system in an instrumented home facility are presented. 1