I recently practiced critical conversations with Skillgym, and I noticed something about myself: I enjoyed it, and I was genuinely driven by the wish to do better. So I asked the question I always ask. Why am I so engaged, and what is happening in my brain? This article looks at intrinsic motivation in learning and at the brain systems research associates with it.
What motivation is
Motivation is a psychological construct that stimulates action towards a desired goal; it is needed both to initiate a behavior and to sustain it. Its main elements are the initiation of action, an expectation tied to the goal, and a reward. It comes in two kinds.
Extrinsic motivation is doing something because it leads to a separable outcome: money, points, a prize. Intrinsic motivation is doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. It is the natural inclination towards spontaneous interest when we discover new information, learn something new, extend our capacities and master an optimal level of challenge.
Intrinsic motivation in learning
Instructional design has long recognized motivation as a preliminary condition for learning in any environment. To keep it high throughout a learning process, the environment must offer an appropriate level of challenge, clear and attainable goals, tasks matched to the learner's level, and immediate individual feedback. When people are intrinsically motivated to learn, they learn more and have a better experience of it.
Why a conversation gym fits
Intrinsic motivation grows out of two satisfactions: curiosity and competence. Seeking novelty and challenge, and then feeling curiosity satisfied and competence growing, are its defining features.
A practice environment for conversations offers both. Each conversation is new, because the character reacts to what you actually say and no two sessions unfold the same way, which keeps curiosity alive. Each conversation has clear objectives and immediate feedback, which lets you feel competence growing. The challenge is matched to your level: the live coach gives more guidance to a beginner and only strategy to an experienced person, and the difficulty of scenarios grows with you. On these grounds we expect, and observe, a high level of intrinsic motivation in people who practice this way.
The brain systems involved
Neural activity during intrinsically motivating tasks has been studied with functional imaging. Research points to three elements: the anterior insular cortex, the striatum, and the interaction between them.
The anterior insular cortex sits deep within the lateral fissure of each hemisphere. Its activation is associated with subjective feelings from the body: it represents internal states and integrates them into felt experience. Researchers have concluded that insular activity tied to feelings of intrinsic satisfaction is a key source of intrinsic motivation. Interestingly, strong insular activation has also been related to high self-awareness, which is one of the dimensions of emotional style and a core component of emotional intelligence. Since self-awareness is at the heart of our method, this link is worth noting.
The striatum is a group of structures at the center of the brain, a principal component of the basal ganglia, receiving many inputs from the cortex. It is involved in movement, cognition and behavior, and because it integrates reward-related information, it is considered central to extrinsic motivation. More recent work shows that striatal activity during tasks that are suspenseful, challenging, satisfying and interesting, such as resolving curiosity or feeling competent, generates intrinsic reward too.
The two structures are anatomically connected, and studies observe that their activity interacts positively during intrinsically motivating tasks: an integration of bodily feeling and reward during the experience of satisfaction.
From feeling to goal-directed action
Other researchers read the insula-striatum connection as the process by which subjective feelings lead to goal-directed behavior. Acquiring control over reward-related actions means encoding the link between an action and its outcome, and evaluating the value of that outcome, which is not fixed but depends on the person's needs and desires. Findings suggest that the connection between insula and striatum mediates how the memory of an outcome's value guides the choice between actions. In a conversation gym, that is precisely the loop: you try a move, you see and hear its effect on the character, and the remembered value of that effect shapes what you do next time.
Conclusions
Practicing critical conversations in this way appears to be a motivationally engaging learning task, and the literature offers a plausible neuroscientific account of why: the satisfaction of curiosity and competence engages the systems that produce intrinsic reward and turn feeling into goal-directed action. There are differing views and limitations in these studies, and no imaging study has been run on this specific activity. But the practical consequence is already visible in the behavior of people who practice: they come back, and they come back to do better.