When we explore, we transform the indeterminate status and meaning of the unknown thing that we are exploring into something determinate-in the worst case, rendering it nonthreatening, nonpunishing; in the best, manipulating and/or categorizing it so that it is useful. Animals perform this transformation in the course of actual action, which is to say that they construct their worlds by shifting their positions and changing their actions in the face of the unknown, and by mapping the consequences of those shifts and changes in terms of their affective or motivational valence.
