Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now?

Timing and Consequences on Behavior

Timing and Consequences on Behavior

In operant conditioning, the timing of reinforcement is crucial. For animals like rats and cats, immediate reinforcement (within a few seconds) is much more effective than delayed reinforcement. For example, a food reward for a rat needs to follow within 30 seconds of pressing a bar to be effective.
Humans, however, can respond to delayed reinforcers. We often make decisions between immediate small rewards and delayed larger rewards. This ability to delay gratification is a significant...

Avoidance Learning and Learned Helplessness

Avoidance Learning and Learned Helplessness

Avoidance learning and learned helplessness are critical concepts in understanding behavioral responses to negative stimuli.
Avoidance learning occurs when an organism learns that a specific behavior can prevent an unpleasant outcome. For example, a student who receives a bad grade may start studying harder to avoid future poor grades. This behavior persists even when the negative outcome is no longer present. Avoidance learning is powerful because it maintains behavior in the absence of the...

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...

Observational Learning

Observational Learning

Albert Bandura's observational learning, also known as imitation or modeling, occurs when a person observes and imitates another's behavior. It is a quicker process than operant conditioning. A well-known example is the Bobo doll study, where children who saw an adult acting aggressively towards the doll were more likely to act aggressively when left alone, compared to those who observed a nonaggressive adult. Many psychologists view observational learning as a form of latent learning...

Reinforcement Schedules

Reinforcement Schedules

Positive reinforcement is a powerful method for teaching new behaviors to both animals and humans. B.F. Skinner demonstrated this with his experiments using rats in a Skinner box. When a rat pressed a lever, it received a food pellet. This immediate reward encouraged the rat to repeat the behavior. This method, where a reward follows every instance of the behavior, is known as continuous reinforcement. It is highly effective for establishing new behaviors quickly.
Once a behavior is learned,...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Moving From Individualized Risk-Based Prevention to Benefit-Based Prevention: Estimating Individualized Life-Years Gained From Prevention Services as a Basis for Eligibility.

Statistics in medicine·2026

Same author

RRM1 competes with NEDD4 to stabilize USP19 by blocking K387 ubiquitination and suppresses autophagy-mediated chemoresistance in colorectal cancer.

Cellular oncology (Dordrecht, Netherlands)·2026

Same author

Cation concentration-dependent reaction kinetics in single-atom catalysts for electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction.

Chemical science·2026

Same author

Bifenthrin exacerbates ulcerative colitis via immunotoxicity: network toxicology and experimental validation reveal novel therapeutic targets.

BMC pharmacology & toxicology·2026

Same author

Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis suppresses tomato bacterial wilt by coordinating plant systemic resistance with microbiome antagonism.

Mycorrhiza·2026

Same author

Identifying neural oscillation and phase synchronization abnormalities in migraine and their predictive values in transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Journal of oral & facial pain and headache·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 21, 2025

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents

Published on: September 10, 2018

Addressing Hindsight Bias in Multigoal Reinforcement Learning.

Chenjia Bai, Lingxiao Wang, Yixin Wang

IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics

|September 8, 2021

Summary

Hindsight Experience Replay (HER) in multigoal reinforcement learning (RL) can introduce bias. A new algorithm, bias-corrected HER (BHER), addresses this by correcting the learning objective, improving performance in robotics tasks.

More Related Videos

The Double-H Maze: A Robust Behavioral Test for Learning and Memory in Rodents

The Double-H Maze: A Robust Behavioral Test for Learning and Memory in Rodents

Published on: July 8, 2015

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Published on: February 4, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Oct 21, 2025

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents

Published on: September 10, 2018

The Double-H Maze: A Robust Behavioral Test for Learning and Memory in Rodents

The Double-H Maze: A Robust Behavioral Test for Learning and Memory in Rodents

Published on: July 8, 2015

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Pavlovian Conditioned Approach Training in Rats

Published on: February 4, 2016

Area of Science:

Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Machine Learning

Background:

Multigoal reinforcement learning (RL) enhances standard RL with goal-conditional policies.
Hindsight Experience Replay (HER) is an efficient multigoal RL algorithm that uses failed experiences to provide frequent rewards.

Purpose of the Study:

To analyze the bias introduced by HER's assumption that hindsight goals do not alter transition likelihoods.
To propose a novel algorithm, bias-corrected HER (BHER), to address and correct this hindsight bias.

Main Methods:

Analysis of the likelihood changes in transitions and trajectories when using hindsight goals in RL.
Development and implementation of the bias-corrected HER (BHER) algorithm to rectify the learning objective.

Main Results:

Demonstrated that HER's core assumption leads to a biased learning objective in multigoal RL.
Empirical evidence showing BHER outperforms existing state-of-the-art multigoal RL methods.

Conclusions:

The assumption in HER regarding hindsight goals introduces a significant bias in multigoal RL.
BHER offers an effective solution to mitigate hindsight bias, enhancing performance in complex robotics applications.