Abstract: Understanding learning through uncertainty and bias

Dr. Rasmus Bruckner (Uni Hamburg): Understanding learning through uncertainty and bias

Abstract:

Learning allows humans and animals to make predictions about the environment and increases the likelihood of adaptive behavior. Studying the mechanisms through which humans regulate learning to update their predictions in the face of uncertainty can also shed light on maladaptive behaviors in various clinical and age groups. Drawing on normative learning models, I will illustrate how learning should be calibrated to different sources of uncertainty, including perceptual uncertainty, risk, and environmental changes. Building upon these insights, I will present a series of studies examining dynamic learning in healthy younger adults and across development. Overall, these studies suggest that humans have good adaptive learning abilities but also show systematic biases. I will discuss the emergence of such biases from the perspective of limited cognitive resources.