Florian Morin

This project develops a behavioral task to investigate whether evaluative monitoring constrains access to high-intensity positive affect.

A Regime Theory of Joy offers a theoretical explanation for why the task may facilitate access to high-intensity positive affect.

Florian Morin

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

Current empirical direction

Development of the M-ZRT, Evaluation/Z Reduction Task
Identification of task failure points
Testing whether reduced monitoring changes access conditions
Distinguishing monitoring effects from reward, novelty, and practice effects

All theoretical content presented here has been developed independently by the author.

Behavioral Task and Hypotheses

Suspension of optimization permits access to a regime where:

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

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

It is is proposed as the common principle underlying the M-ZRT exercises. Rather than targeting separate processes, each exercise briefly interrupts a different form of optimization before it recruits its next policy.

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.