The Neurocognitive Foundation of the Symbolic–Functional Model of Motivation

This paper develops the neurocognitive foundation of the Symbolic–Functional Model of Motivation. It argues that motivational organization is not structured hierarchically but emerges from dynamic integration between two distinct neurocognitive systems: semantic–social meaning-processing networks and constraint-sensitive executive regulation systems. The study maps the symbolic dimension onto embodied social cognition mechanisms, memory systems, and neural processes supporting identity stabilization and intersubjective alignment, while the functional dimension is associated with executive control, cost–benefit evaluation, and feasibility-sensitive behavioral regulation. Motivation is interpreted as a distributed network state shaped by coupling and decoupling dynamics between these systems, leading to reweighting processes and phase transitions in motivational structure. The framework advances a formative perspective on neural organization in which large-scale brain networks are understood as adaptive structures co-shaped by social meaning and practical constraints.