There is general agreement that both motivation and cognitive control play critical roles in shaping goal-directed behavior, but only recently has scientific interest focused around the question of motivation-control interactions. Here we briefly survey this literature, organizing contemporary findings around three issues: 1) whether motivation preferentially impacts cognitive control processes, 2) the neural mechanisms that underlie motivation-cognition interactions, and 3) why motivation might be relevant for overcoming the costs of control. Dopamine (DA) is discussed as a key neuromodulator in these motivation-cognition interactions. We conclude by highlighting open issues, specifically Pavlovian versus instrumental control distinctions and effects of motivational valence and conflict, which could benefit from future research attention.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 January 2026.
All research outputs
#3,713,120
of 29,429,421 outputs
Outputs from Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
#349
of 1,174 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#66,742
of 460,940 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
#8
of 30 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 29,429,421 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 87th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,174 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 19.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 460,940 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 30 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
