Time pressure changes how people explore and respond to uncertainty.

ABSTRACT: How does time pressure influence exploration and decision-making? We investigated this question with several four-armed bandit tasks manipulating (within subjects) expected reward, uncertainty, and time pressure (limited vs. unlimited). With limited time, people have less opportunity to perform costly computations, thus shifting the cost-benefit balance of different exploration strategies. Through behavioral, reinforcement learning (RL), reaction time (RT), and evidence accumulation analyses, we show that time pressure changes how people explore and respond to uncertainty. Specifically, participants reduced their uncertainty-directed exploration under time pressure, were less value-directed, and repeated choices more often. Since our analyses relate uncertainty to slower responses and damp

SUBMITTER: Wu CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8904509 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature