Context-dependent outcome encoding in human reinforcement learning

Article dans une revue: 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.

Auteur(s)

Stefano Palminteri, Maël Lebreton

Revue
  • Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Date de publication
  • 2021
Mots-clés JEL
D87
Pages
  • 144-151
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 41