Disturbance modifies payoffs in the explore-exploit trade-off.

Area of Science:

• Behavioral economics
• Ecology
• Decision science

Background:

• Decision-making agents balance exploration and exploitation.
• Exploration's impact on human performance is understudied outside labs.
• This trade-off is crucial for adaptive behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the real-world consequences of human exploratory strategies.
• Examine the relationship between exploration and performance in a natural stochastic system.
• Understand how disturbances affect the exploration-performance link.

Main Methods:

• Analyzed 540,000 commercial fishing vessel position records from 2494 trips.
• Correlated vessel exploration strategies with trip revenues.
• Compared findings during undisturbed and major disturbance periods.

Main Results:

• No link between exploration and performance during undisturbed conditions.
• Explorers showed significantly better revenues during a major disturbance event.
• Explorers were more likely to continue fishing post-disturbance.

Conclusions:

• Exploration may buffer against disturbances in non-stationary reward environments.
• The role of exploration in human adaptation to natural disturbances is significant.
• Findings challenge theoretical predictions in real-world stochastic systems.