The value of approaching bad things

Alexander S. Rich, Todd M. Gureckis

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Adaptive decision making often entails learning to approach things that lead to positive outcomes while avoiding things that are negative. The decision to avoid something removes the risk of a negative experience but also forgoes the opportunity to obtain information, specifically that a seemingly negative option is actually positive. This paper explores how people learn to approach or avoid objects with uncertain payoffs. We provide a computational-level analysis of optimal decision making in this problem which quantifies how the probability of encountering an object in the future should impact the decision to approach or avoid it. A large experiment conducted online shows that most people intuitively take into account both their uncertainty and the value of information when deciding to approach seemingly bad things.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1281-1286
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196708
StatePublished - 2014
Event36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014 - Quebec City, Canada
Duration: Jul 23 2014Jul 26 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014

Conference

Conference36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityQuebec City
Period7/23/147/26/14

Keywords

  • approach-or-avoid behavior
  • decision making
  • sequential decision making
  • value of information

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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