Heterogeneity in strategy use during arbitration between experiential and observational learning

Caroline J Charpentier; Qianying Wu; Seokyoung Min; Weilun Ding; Jeffrey Cockburn; John P O'Doherty

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-48548-y

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Heterogeneity in strategy use during arbitration between experiential and observational learning

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Heterogeneity in strategy use during arbitration between experiential and observational learning

Caroline J Charpentier, Qianying Wu, Seokyoung Min, Weilun Ding, Jeffrey Cockburn and John P O'Doherty

Nature communications, Vol.15(1), pp.4436-4436

05/24/2024

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48548-y

PMCID: PMC11126711

PMID: 38789415

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48548-yView

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Abstract

To navigate our complex social world, it is crucial to deploy multiple learning strategies, such as learning from directly experiencing action outcomes or from observing other people's behavior. Despite the prevalence of experiential and observational learning in humans and other social animals, it remains unclear how people favor one strategy over the other depending on the environment, and how individuals vary in their strategy use. Here, we describe an arbitration mechanism in which the prediction errors associated with each learning strategy influence their weight over behavior. We designed an online behavioral task to test our computational model, and found that while a substantial proportion of participants relied on the proposed arbitration mechanism, there was some meaningful heterogeneity in how people solved this task. Four other groups were identified: those who used a fixed mixture between the two strategies, those who relied on a single strategy and non-learners with irrelevant strategies. Furthermore, groups were found to differ on key behavioral signatures, and on transdiagnostic symptom dimensions, in particular autism traits and anxiety. Together, these results demonstrate how large heterogeneous datasets and computational methods can be leveraged to better characterize individual differences.

Adolescent

Adult

Anxiety - psychology

Computer Simulation

Female

Humans

Learning - physiology

Male

Negotiating

Young Adult

Details

Title: Subtitle: Heterogeneity in strategy use during arbitration between experiential and observational learning
Creators: Caroline J Charpentier - California Institute of Technology
Qianying Wu - California Institute of Technology
Seokyoung Min - California Institute of Technology
Weilun Ding - California Institute of Technology
Jeffrey Cockburn - California Institute of Technology
John P O'Doherty - California Institute of Technology
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Nature communications, Vol.15(1), pp.4436-4436
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48548-y
PMID: 38789415
PMCID: PMC11126711
ISSN: 2041-1723
eISSN: 2041-1723
Grant note: 218642/Z/19/Z / Wellcome Trust (Wellcome) P50MH094258 / U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) K99MH123669 / U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Language: English
Date published: 05/24/2024
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences
Record Identifier: 9984696754502771

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