A bias toward the unknown: individual and environmental factors influencing exploratory behavior.

ABSTRACT: With limited resources, exploring new opportunities is crucial for survival. Exploring novel options, however, comes at the cost of uncertainty. Therefore, there is a trade-off between exploiting options with a known beneficial outcome and exploring novel options with a potentially higher gain. Computational models have suggested that novelty may promote exploratory behavior by inducing a so-called novelty bonus through reward-related processes. So far, few studies have provided behavioral evidence for such a novelty bonus. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether spatial novelty can stimulate exploratory behavior (Experiment 1), and whether age, novelty-seeking, and reduced action radius or social interactions due to COVID-19 restrictions influenced the exploration-exploitation trad

SUBMITTER: Petzke TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9306615 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature