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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Computational Neuroscience

Background:

  • Organisms face a critical explore-exploit tradeoff between known rewards and seeking better unknown options.
  • Theoretical frameworks propose directed (information-seeking bias) and random (decision noise) strategies for exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the extent to which humans employ directed and random exploration strategies.
  • To quantify the contributions of these strategies to human decision-making in explore-exploit tasks.

Main Methods:

  • Developed the "Horizon task" with two conditions: a short time horizon (1 choice) and a long time horizon (6 sequential choices).
  • Modeled participant behavior in both conditions to measure exploration-related decision-making changes.
  • Quantified the contributions of directed and random exploration strategies.

Main Results:

  • Participants exhibited increased information seeking and higher decision noise in the longer time horizon condition.
  • Behavioral modeling revealed distinct contributions of both directed and random strategies to exploration.
  • Findings indicate humans adapt their exploration strategies based on the decision context.

Conclusions:

  • Humans utilize both directed information seeking and random choice variability to manage the exploration-exploitation dilemma.
  • These exploration strategies are adaptable and can be controlled to serve information-gathering goals.