Biology subjects

Laurie, V.-J.

Publications and source records attributed to Laurie, V.-J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

A Foraging-Theory Based Model Captures The Full Spectrum of Human Behavioral Diversity in a Classic RL Task

Decision-making tasks involving multiple, simultaneously presented options are mainstays of cognitive neuroscience and psychology and are increasingly important to the emerging field of computational psychiatry. Modeling approaches to these tasks overwhelmingly assume that participants make choices based on explicitly comparing the values of the presented options. Contrary to this long-held assumption, we found instead that humans employ a compare-to-threshold decision process, similar to theories of foraging, when making sequential decisions about concurrently available options. We confirmed this result in a large (1000 participant) dataset with multiple converging lines of evidence comparing both model fits and model generative performance. Value-comparison models were restricted to a reduced area of the potential space of single-trial outcome-dependent behavior, demonstrating an intrinsic limitation in the ability to reproduce strategy diversity. Furthermore, we found that using even the best-fit value-comparison model led to a substantial, systematic bias and a compression of individual differences in reconstructed behavior compared to the foraging-based model, leading to weaker predictions of behavioral health measures. Our results imply that studies using value-comparison models to link behavior with neural activity or psychiatric symptoms may be less sensitive to individual differences than a simple alternative based on ethological foraging.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Humans forage for reward in reinforcement learning tasks

How do we make good decisions in uncertain environments? In psychology and neuroscience, the classic view is that we calculate the value of each option, compare them, and choose the most rewarding modulo exploratory noise. An ethologist, conversely, would argue that we commit to one option until its value drops below a threshold and then explore alternatives. Because the fields use incompatible methods, it remains unclear which view better describes human decision-making. Here, we found that humans use compare-to-threshold computations in classic compare-alternative tasks. Because compare-alternative computations are central to the reinforcement-learning (RL) models typically used in the cognitive and brain sciences, we developed a novel compare-to-threshold model ("foraging"). Compared to previous RL models, the foraging model better fit participant behavior, better predicted the tendency to repeat choices, and predicted held-out participants that were almost impossible under comparealternative models. These results suggest that humans use compare-to-threshold computations in sequential decision-making.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Persistent Decision-Making in Mice, Monkeys, and Humans

Humans have the capacity to persist in behavioural policies, even in challenging environments that lack immediate reward. Persistence is the scaffold on which many higher executive functions are built. However, it remains unclear whether humans are uniquely persistent or, instead, if this capacity is widely conserved across species. To address this question, we compared humans with mice and monkeys in harmonised versions of a dynamic decision-making task. The task encouraged all species to strike a balance between persistently exploiting one policy and exploring alternative policies that could become better at any moment. Although all three species had similar strategies, we found that both primate species--humans and monkeys--were able to persist in exploitation for longer than the mice. The similarities in persistence patterns in humans and monkeys, as opposed to mice, may be related to the various ecological, neurobiological, or cognitive factors that differ systematically between these species.

animal behavior and cognition↗