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Rational use of cognitive resources in human planning.
Frederick Callaway1, Bas van Opheusden2, Sayan Gul3
1Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. fredcallaway@princeton.edu.
Nature Human Behaviour
|April 28, 2022
Summary
Humans make complex decisions despite limited cognitive resources. This study models optimal planning strategies, finding that people adapt their approach, aligning with optimal models but deviating due to unaddressed cognitive constraints.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Decision Making
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Making optimal decisions requires foresight, but exhaustive planning is computationally infeasible for agents with limited resources, like humans.
- Understanding how humans solve novel problems with long-reaching consequences is a critical question in cognitive science.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and analyze a model of resource-constrained planning to derive optimal planning strategies.
- To investigate how human planning strategies align with theoretically optimal strategies and existing heuristics.
Main Methods:
- Developed a model for resource-constrained planning to identify optimal strategies.
- Utilized a mouse-tracking paradigm to observe human planning behavior.
- Compared human strategies against the optimal model and heuristic models (e.g., best-first search).
Main Results:
- Previously proposed heuristics are not universally optimal; their effectiveness varies with circumstances.
- Human planning strategies adapt and are broadly consistent with the derived optimal model.
- Systematic deviations from the optimal model suggest the presence of additional, yet unidentified, cognitive constraints.
Conclusions:
- Human decision-making under constraints is adaptive, approximating optimal planning but not perfectly.
- Existing heuristic models do not fully capture human planning behavior.
- Further research is needed to identify the specific cognitive constraints influencing human planning deviations.
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