1,720,960 research outputs found

    Learning in Dynamic Decision Making: Information Utilization andFuture Planning

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    It has been proposed that decision makers often misperceive the feedback provided by dynamically complex environments, and some have questioned whether people are capable of learning effective decision-making in such environments. Indeed, some (e.g., Sterman,1989) researchers believe that humans simply do not possess the “cognitive machinery” that allow them to deal with dynamic situations. In two experiments, we studied learning behavior in a well-known dynamic environment called the beer game. Contrary to previous findings, we found that performance significantly improved through repeated practice. In the first experiment, concurrent verbal reports indicated that performance improved through better utilization of critical information. Subjects also learned to engage in better future planning by anticipating changes in the system. In the second experiment, we provided only information that was critical for their decisions and found that initial performance was significantly better, indicating faster learning. It is concluded poor utilization of critical information and insufficient future planning are the major factors for learning in dynamic decision making

    Extending the Computational Abilities of the Procedural Learning Mechanism in ACT-R

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    The existing procedural learning mechanism in ACT-R (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) has been successful in explaining a wide range of adaptive choice behavior. However, the existing mechanism is inherently limited to learning from binary feedback (i.e. whether a reward is received or not). It is thus difficult to capture choice behavior that is sensitive to both the probabilities of receiving a reward and the reward magnitudes. By modifying the temporal difference learning algorithm (Sutton & Barto, 1998), a new procedural learning mechanism is implemented that generalizes and extends the computational abilities of the current mechanism. Models using the new mechanism were fit to three sets of human data collected from experiments of probability learning and decision making tasks. The new procedural learning mechanism fit the data at least as well as the existing mechanism, and is able to fit data that are problematic for the existing mechanism. This paper also shows how the principle of reinforcement learning can be implemented in a production system like ACT-R

    Dual Learning Processes in Interactive Skill Acquisition

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    Acquisition of interactive skills involves the use of internal and external cues. Experiment 1 showed that when actions were interdependent, learning was effective with and without external cues in the single-task condition but was effective only with the presence of external cues in the dual-task condition. In the dual-task condition, actions closer to the feedback were learned faster than actions farther away but this difference was reversed in the single-task condition. Experiment 2 tested how knowledge acquired in single and dual-task conditions would transfer to a new reward structure. Results confirmed the two forms of learning mediated by the secondary task: A declarative memory encoding process that simultaneously assigned credits to actions and a reinforcement-learning process that slowly propagated credits backward from the feedback. The results showed that both forms of learning were engaged during training, but only at the response selection stage, one form of knowledge may dominate over the other depending on the availability of attentional resources

    Solving the Credit Assignment Problem: The Interaction of Explicit and Implicit Learning with Internal and External State Information

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    In most problem-solving activities, feedback is received at the end of an action sequence. This creates a credit-assignment problem where the learner must associate the feedback with earlier actions, and the interdependencies of actions require the learner to either remember past choices of actions (internal state information) or rely on external cues in the environment (external state information) to select the right actions. We investigated the nature of explicit and implicit learning processes in the credit-assignment problem using a probabilistic sequential choice task with and without external state information. We found that when explicit memory encoding was dominant, subjects were faster to select the better option in their first choices than in the last choices; when implicit reinforcement learning was dominant subjects were faster to select the better option in their last choices than in their first choices. However, implicit reinforcement learning was only successful when distinct external state information was available. The results suggest the nature of learning in credit assignment: an explicit memory encoding process that keeps track of internal state information and a reinforcement-learning process that uses state information to propagate reinforcement backwards to previous choices. However, the implicit reinforcement learning process is effective only when the valences can be attributed to the appropriate states in the system – either internally generated states in the cognitive system or externally presented stimuli in the environment.</p

    From Recurrent Choice to Skill Learning: A Reinforcement-Learning Model

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    The authors propose a reinforcement-learning mechanism as a model for recurrent choice and extend it to account for skill learning. The model was inspired by recent research in neurophysiological studies of the basal ganglia and provides an integrated explanation of recurrent choice behavior and skill learning. The behavior includes effects of differential probabilities, magnitudes, variabilities, and delay of reinforcement. The model can also produce the violation of independence, preference reversals, and the goal gradient of reinforcement in maze learning. An experiment was conducted to study learning of action sequences in a multistep task. The fit of the model to the data demonstrated its ability to account for complex skill learning. The advantages of incorporating the mechanism into a larger cognitive architecture are discussed

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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