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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 24, 2026

New Variations for Strategy Set-shifting in the Rat
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Adaptive variability in humans, pigeons, and rats.

Janne Reynders1, Tom Verguts1, Senne Braem1

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University.

Psychological Review
|April 23, 2026
PubMed
Summary

This study explores adaptive variability in decision-making. Humans uniquely upvalue unchosen actions to increase behavioral variability, unlike pigeons and rats.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Computational Neuroscience

Background:

  • Adaptive variability is crucial for success in diverse domains like sports, art, and problem-solving.
  • While conditions for increased variability are known, underlying cognitive mechanisms remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the cognitive mechanisms driving adaptive variability in decision-making.
  • To model and compare three theorized strategies for generating behavioral variability.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a reinforcement learning model to simulate strategies in an adversarial reward learning environment.
  • Employed systematic parameter searches and policy gradient metalearning.
  • Fitted the model to existing datasets of humans, pigeons, and rats in adversarial settings.

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Main Results:

  • All three simulated strategies (stochastic generator, increased learning rate, upvaluing unchosen actions) can increase agent variability.
  • Humans, pigeons, and rats exhibit highly variable behavior.
  • Only humans were found to employ the strategy of upvaluing unchosen actions to achieve variability.

Conclusions:

  • Adaptive variability can be achieved through multiple computational strategies.
  • Humans exhibit a unique cognitive mechanism for generating behavioral variability by upvaluing unchosen actions.