Central hypothesis: Positive affect depends on accessibility to a distinct control regime rather than merely on greater rewards.

An experimental task is derived from the paper A Regime Theory of Joy.

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Florian Morin

Independent researcher studying regime transitions and the role of evaluative monitoring in access to high-intensity positive affect.

Current empirical direction

Development of the M-ZRT, an Evaluation/Z Reduction Task

Childhood play contains brief suspensions of optimization. These moments may reflect a distinct control configuration characterized by reduced monitoring, easier access to imagery, and a greater propensity for joy.

This is the common principle underlying the M-ZRT exercises: each one briefly interrupts a different form of optimization before recruiting its next policy.

Hypotheses

The task is designed to test the hypothesis that temporarily suspending optimization alters access conditions to a distinct affective regime, where:

joy is the norm;
vividness of imagination occasionally happens;
completion of positive memories occasionally happens;
odors, colors, and tastes are recruited simultaneously from simple cues.

Z functions as a state variable tracking how much behavior is being evaluated, corrected, checked. High Z increases monitoring and blocks entry into joy. Attempts to measure or intentionally reproduce the state may themselves raise Z, producing a measurement constraint.