Speekenbrink, Maarten;
(2022)
Chasing Unknown Bandits: Uncertainty Guidance in Learning and Decision Making.
Current Directions in Psychological Science
10.1177/09637214221105051.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
09637214221105051.pdf - Published Version Download (463kB) | Preview |
Abstract
In repeated decision problems for which it is possible to learn from experience, people should actively seek out uncertain options, rather than avoid ambiguity or uncertainty, in order to learn and improve future decisions. Research on human behavior in a variety of multiarmed-bandit tasks supports this prediction. Multiarmed-bandit tasks involve repeated decisions between options with initially unknown reward distributions and require a careful balance between learning about relatively unknown options (exploration) and obtaining high immediate rewards (exploitation). Resolving this exploration-exploitation dilemma optimally requires considering not only the estimated value of each option, but also the uncertainty in these estimations. Bayesian learning naturally quantifies uncertainty and hence provides a principled framework to study how humans resolve this dilemma. On the basis of computational modeling and behavioral results in bandit tasks, I argue that human learning, attention, and exploration are guided by uncertainty. These results support Bayesian theories of cognition and underpin the fundamental role of subjective uncertainty in both learning and decision making.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Chasing Unknown Bandits: Uncertainty Guidance in Learning and Decision Making |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/09637214221105051 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221105051 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, experience-based decisions, exploration-exploitation dilemma, Bayesian learning, EXPLORATION, CHOICE |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10155229 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
