Repetition bias in self-directed learning

Self-directed learning is a major part of individual knowledge formation. People often autonomously organize their own learning into "blocks": they practice a certain task for some continuous stretch of time, then switch to another task for another period of time, and so on. Yet current models of intrinsic motivation highlighting epistemic factors such as novelty, competence, and learning progress make various predictions about the extent to which learners block, as opposed to interleaving, their practice. In this study, we demonstrate that people tend to block in a multi-task setting where existing models of intrinsic motivation based on epistemic factors make ambiguous predictions. We show that while epistemic factors can partially explain blocking, a simple repetition bias substantially improves our ability to predict choices.