Humans adaptively deploy forward and backward prediction.

ABSTRACT: The formation of predictions is essential to our ability to build models of the world and use them for intelligent decision-making. Here we challenge the dominant assumption that humans form only forward predictions, which specify what future events are likely to follow a given present event. We demonstrate that in some environments, it is more efficient to use backward prediction, which specifies what present events are likely to precede a given future event. This is particularly the case in diverging environments, where possible future events outnumber possible present events. Correspondingly, in six preregistered experiments (n = 1,299) involving both simple decision-making and more challenging planning tasks, we find that humans engage in backward prediction in divergent environments a

SUBMITTER: Sharp PB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11878374 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature