Fear and the intolerance of the unknown appear to significantly influence human inclination to explore (Carleton, 2016). Similarly, and perhaps inherently related, is motivation and emotion, which appear to be cognitive constructs that appear to be inherent in human experiences and which influence their behaviour.
This suggests that evaluating stimuli and determining how they affect the agent's sensitivity to fear is likely an important aspect in processing observations. In this way, fear also appears to be an abstraction derived from experience, likely related to value/need/priority.
Need
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model theorises, “…that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy”, and so suggests that individuals (humans at least) manifest motivation based on their own personal hierarchy of needs (Koltko-Rivera, 2006). This suggests that needs, and a mechanism for establishing and evaluating needs, might represent a foundational basis that predicates experiential value, or the value of arbitrary experiences and how this could influence the agent's exploratory behaviour. In this respect, need, like fear, is itself apparently an abstraction based on evaluative observation.
The theory suggests that the more important the need is, the closer it is to the bottom of the hierarchy and that these represent the basic needs that must be satisfied first before moving up the hierarchy. Specifically, “…that humans are driven by innate needs for survival, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-realisation, in that order” (Abulof, 2017).
This suggests that the physical needs, i.e those that are more likely to be evaluated and perceived through physical perception (survival/pain/hunger), are more important and have a higher priority, and therefore subsume other needs that appear higher up, which would be lower priority.
While this is based on humans, establishing and positioning where in a hierarchy of needs an individual or agent is, might be useful in establishing and evaluating the value of an arbitrary experience (referred previously as experiential value), and thus may help inform their behaviour accordingly.
An interesting and perhaps tangential diversion is the possible emergence of needs and synthesis of goals purely based on the value of witnessed experiences. That is, establishing a new goal dynamically without prior knowledge of that goal, perhaps based purely on the evaluation of established underlying needs. More research would be required if this were to be pursued.
Emotion
David Hume argued that emotional (an abstraction) and instinctive physical drives are what govern human behaviour, and that there are inherent forms of understanding already present in human nature which influence decisions and responses, and which, “…are not learned, nor are they the result of deliberation or will” (Hill, 2020).
The James-Lange theory of emotion suggests that emotions are in response to the physical perceptions which are then codified as emotions, and that, “…rather than causing bodily and visceral responses, an emotion is itself a perception of these specific reactions” (Simon Blackburn, 2016). In this way, emotions appear to be a precursor to action (behaviour).
Furthermore, emotions appears to be intrinsically linked to environmental stimuli and rationalizing the unknown, for example, Schacter and Singer’s theory of emotion suggests, “…that individuals who are in a state of physiological arousal for which they have no explanation (no suitable representative abstraction) will label that state as an emotion that is appropriate to the situation in which they find themselves. (‘Schachter-Singer’s theory of emotion’, 2006).
This is an interesting idea considering the evaluation of new and unknown stimuli and may suggest that emotion can be used to inform behaviour in experiences that are specifically new and unexpected.
Generally, “…mismatched expectations are often associated with an emotional response” (Van De Poll and Swinderen, 2021), which seems to indicate a relationship between emotion and expectation, or, as Singer suggests, perhaps the failure to find an expectation.
It is possible that the reason why mismatched expectations produce an emotional response, and perhaps vice versa, is that, like expectation, emotions represent an associated validation or failure in codification of a prior, costly knowledge-formation process (formation of abstractions). Additionally, high-value needs/priorities may be more closely aligned with a specific associated emotion than lower priorities or needs, and so it may be possible for a model to simulate the association between such high-priority S-R links with specific emotion. This would require more research.
In summary, in addition to collecting experiences through observations based on stimuli and responses theory, the observational data can be used to inform cognitive processes (formation of abstractions) in the agent, as well as being used for latent analysis.
References
Carleton, R. N. (2016) ‘Into the unknown: A review and synthesis of contemporary models involving uncertainty’, Journal of anxiety disorders, 39(Journal Article), pp. 30–43. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.02.007.
Koltko-Rivera, M. E. (2006) ‘Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification’, Review of general psychology, 10(4), pp. 302–317. doi: 10.1037/1089-2680.10.4.302.
Abulof, U. (2017) ‘Introduction: Why We Need Maslow in the Twenty-First Century’, Society (New Brunswick), 54(6), pp. 508–509. doi: 10.1007/s12115-017-0198-6.
Hill, J. (2020) ‘The Role of Instinct in David Hume’s Conception of Human Reason’, Journal of Scottish philosophy, 18(3), pp. 273–288. doi: 10.3366/jsp.2020.0277.
Simon Blackburn (2016) ‘James-Lange theory of emotion’. Oxford University Press.
‘Schachter-singer’s theory of emotion’ (2006).
Van De Poll, M. N. and Swinderen, B. van (2021) ‘Balancing Prediction and Surprise: A Role for Active Sleep at the Dawn of Consciousness?’, Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 15, pp. 768762–768762. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2021.768762.