ABSTRACT
The concept of motivation is typically used to explain and predict complex actions at the level of observable behavior—for instance, in the context of decision making and learning. Although it is indisputable that motivation biases behavior towards favorable, and away from unfavorable, response options, it is less clear at which stage—between the selection and processing of sensory input and the preparation and initiation of behavior—such motivational influences take effect. For a long time, the visual system was deemed to be a passive recorder of the environment, while motivation was primarily associated with behavioral responses. This view markedly changed with the advent of a research approach that had been summarized under the term “New Look.” In the New Look era, the previously rigid distinction between perception and motivation was challenged, leading to the (at that time) radical conclusion that perception is an active, constructive, and inferential process, dependent on the needs of the individual and the values of stimuli in the environment (e.g., Bruner & Goodman, 1947; Gilchrist & Nesberg, 1952; McClelland & Atkinson, 1948). However, the vigor and enthusiasm of this direction were soon dampened by strong methodological and conceptual criticism (Prentice, 1958), and it was thus not pursued further during the following decades.
