<p><strong>I’m not an expert on this subject</strong> but, if we take the term of <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00548/full" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>prediction errors</strong></a> and apply it to the animals (at least most of them) that may make sense.</p>
<p>The key element is probably &quot;foraging&quot; in this case. The brain itself drives (with the reward system of course) to animals for finding new ways for gathering food. In their <em>umwelt</em>, food sources are dispersed, unreliable in terms of availability, unreliable in terms of quality and quantity, and all too often snatched up by a faster-moving organism in terms of competition.</p>
<p>So animal needs to <em>update</em> its <em>predictions</em> to getting food. Predictions that are updated can lead to more successful interactions between the animal and its ever-changing environment.</p>
<p>As a result, understanding new perceptual aspects of an unexpected stimulus and assessing whether the surprise was better or worse than predicted may be critical for directing future behaviors. And of course, dopaminergic pathways in the brain support this process. <a href="https://behavioralandbrainfunctions.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-9081-6-24" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Schultz, 2010</a>; <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(10)00938-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0896627310009384%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bromberg-Martin et al, 2010</a>. Moreover, the same neurons change their firing rates in different directions to express the presence of an unexpected reward and the absence of an expected reward.  <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(13)00754-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS089662731300754X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hyde et al, 2015</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-15T09:01:48.817Z
2021-08-15T09:01:48.817Z
AltunE
<p>Humans tend to find ways to keep themselves motivated and happy.
What about animals? Do they feel down and look for new ways to motivate themselves?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-12T16:15:55.890Z
"Animals" is an incredibly, incredibly broad category. It's unclear to me whether many of them have "motivation" at all except in a anthropomorphic manner.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-13T20:56:46.923Z
I'm also unclear what constitutes "find ways to keep themselves motivated and happy".  Animals play, are curious, explore, problem-solve, seek social contact, mate, reproduce, and many other behaviors that humans do for motivation and happiness.
Arnon Weinberg
<animal-cognition>
Do animals look for new ways to keep themselves motivated?
time__traveller_
# Do animals look for new ways to keep themselves motivated?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-08-12)

Humans tend to find ways to keep themselves motivated and happy.
What about animals? Do they feel down and look for new ways to motivate themselves?

**Tags:** animal-cognition

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "Animals" is an incredibly, incredibly broad category. It's unclear to me whether many of them have "motivation" at all except in a anthropomorphic manner.  
> **username_2**: I'm also unclear what constitutes "find ways to keep themselves motivated and happy".  Animals play, are curious, explore, problem-solve, seek social contact, mate, reproduce, and many other behaviors that humans do for motivation and happiness.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2021-08-15. Score: 1

**I’m not an expert on this subject** but, if we take the term of [**prediction errors**](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00548/full) and apply it to the animals (at least most of them) that may make sense.

The key element is probably "foraging" in this case. The brain itself drives (with the reward system of course) to animals for finding new ways for gathering food. In their *umwelt*, food sources are dispersed, unreliable in terms of availability, unreliable in terms of quality and quantity, and all too often snatched up by a faster-moving organism in terms of competition.

So animal needs to *update* its *predictions* to getting food. Predictions that are updated can lead to more successful interactions between the animal and its ever-changing environment.

As a result, understanding new perceptual aspects of an unexpected stimulus and assessing whether the surprise was better or worse than predicted may be critical for directing future behaviors. And of course, dopaminergic pathways in the brain support this process. [Schultz, 2010](https://behavioralandbrainfunctions.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-9081-6-24); [Bromberg-Martin et al, 2010](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(10)00938-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0896627310009384%3Fshowall%3Dtrue). Moreover, the same neurons change their firing rates in different directions to express the presence of an unexpected reward and the absence of an expected reward. [Hyde et al, 2015](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(13)00754-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS089662731300754X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)


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