Context-dependent outcome encoding in human reinforcement learning
Journal article: A wealth of evidence in perceptual and economic decision-making research suggests that the subjective assessment of one option is influenced by the context. A series of studies provides evidence that the same coding principles apply to situations where decisions are shaped by past outcomes, that is, in reinforcement-learning situations. In bandit tasks, human behavior is explained by models assuming that individuals do not learn the objective value of an outcome, but rather its subjective, context-dependent representation. We argue that, while such outcome context-dependence may be informationally or ecologically optimal, it concomitantly undermines the capacity to generalize value-based knowledge to new contexts – sometimes creating apparent decision paradoxes.
Author(s)
Stefano Palminteri, Maël Lebreton
Journal
- Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Date of publication
- 2021
Keywords JEL
Pages
- 144-151
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1
Volume
- 41