Learning environment-specific learning rates.

ABSTRACT: People often have to switch back and forth between different environments that come with different problems and volatilities. While volatile environments require fast learning (i.e., high learning rates), stable environments call for lower learning rates. Previous studies have shown that people adapt their learning rates, but it remains unclear whether they can also learn about environment-specific learning rates, and instantaneously retrieve them when revisiting environments. Here, using optimality simulations and hierarchical Bayesian analyses across three experiments, we show that people can learn to use different learning rates when switching back and forth between two different environments. We even observe a signature of these environment-specific learning rates when the volatility o

SUBMITTER: Simoens J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10990245 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature