ABSTRACT
The key factors in the programming of mammal behaviors go under names like motivation, reward and learning. Subjects learn to do things, if they are rewarded for doing them; and if they are motivated to do them. There is, of course, a continuum from higher to lower motives. The lower end of the continuum is the one we have most in common with the laboratory rat. At this end there are four key factors. First, there are drives, that is, special states created by alarming or dangerous deficits. Second are the incentive mechanisms, that is, reactions to promising stimuli which guide behavior even though deficits are not alarming. Third there are rewards, that is, targets that become objects of pursuit under either of the two kinds of motivating conditions, and which modify behavior repertoires a little or a lot when they are achieved (or when they are brought to bear as stimuli) . Fourth, and finally, there are the learning mechanisms, that is, the set of built-in rules for modifying the repertoire with or without rewards.
