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Reference Signal

It is increasingly popular for people to talk about "internally motivated behavior." In most theories of "internal motivation," something inside a person (such as an idea, a need, a plan, a command, a thought, or a wish) is supposed to design and create the person's behavioral actions. Sometimes, people think the  reference signal  in PCT is just like all of the other alleged "internal causes" described in many of those popular theories. In those cases, people say that a reference signal specifies a person's behavior -- a person's actions that we see from outside. That idea is mistaken.  A perceptual control system specifies some of its own perceptions, and none of its own actions.  The system's actions vary in any way necessary, so that the effects of its actions cancel, or balance with, the effects of environmental disturbances that otherwise would disturb and alter the system's controlled perceptions. A perceptual control system creates and defends perceptions specified by its own reference signals.

A reference signal specifies that, "this particular perception should exist." It does not specify the control system's actions. It does not specify any particular "objective" state of the environment outside of the control system. A reference signal specifies a perception the control system will create, and then defend against disturbances. The role of a reference signal in a perceptual control system is not at all like the roles typically attributed to internal causes that are hypothesized in theories of "internally motivated behavior."