Adaptive behaviour and feedback processing integrate experience and instruction in reinforcement learning.

ABSTRACT: In any non-deterministic environment, unexpected events can indicate true changes in the world (and require behavioural adaptation) or reflect chance occurrence (and must be discounted). Adaptive behaviour requires distinguishing these possibilities. We investigated how humans achieve this by integrating high-level information from instruction and experience. In a series of EEG experiments, instructions modulated the perceived informativeness of feedback: Participants performed a novel probabilistic reinforcement learning task, receiving instructions about reliability of feedback or volatility of the environment. Importantly, our designs de-confound informativeness from surprise, which typically co-vary. Behavioural results indicate that participants used instructions to adapt their behavi

SUBMITTER: Schiffer AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5312784 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature