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Simple threshold rules solve explore/exploit trade‐offs in a resource accumulation search task
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Sang, Ke, Todd, Peter M., Goldstone, Robert L. and Hills, Thomas Trenholm (2020) Simple threshold rules solve explore/exploit trade‐offs in a resource accumulation search task. Cognitive Science, 44 (2). e12817. doi:10.1111/cogs.12817 ISSN 0364-0213.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12817
Abstract
How, and how well, do people switch between exploration and exploitation to search for and accumulate resources? We study the decision processes underlying such exploration/exploitation trade‐offs using a novel card selection task that captures the common situation of searching among multiple resources (e.g., jobs) that can be exploited without depleting. With experience, participants learn to switch appropriately between exploration and exploitation and approach optimal performance. We model participants' behavior on this task with random, threshold, and sampling strategies, and find that a linear decreasing threshold rule best fits participants' results. Further evidence that participants use decreasing threshold‐based strategies comes from reaction time differences between exploration and exploitation; however, participants themselves report non‐decreasing thresholds. Decreasing threshold strategies that “front‐load” exploration and switch quickly to exploitation are particularly effective in resource accumulation tasks, in contrast to optimal stopping problems like the Secretary Problem requiring longer exploration.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Cognitive Science | ||||||||
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0364-0213 | ||||||||
Official Date: | February 2020 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 44 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Article Number: | e12817 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1111/cogs.12817 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Re-use Statement: | ©2020 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 March 2020 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 9 March 2020 |
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