Suboptimal tradeoffs in information seeking

Explicit information-seeking actions are needed to evaluate alternative actions in problem-solving tasks. Information-seeking costs are often traded off against the utility of information. We present three experiments that show how subjects adapt to the cost and information structures of environment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive psychology 2006-05, Vol.52 (3), p.195-242
Main Authors: Fu, Wai-Tat, Gray, Wayne D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACT-R
Adaptive search
Bayes Theorem
Bayesian analysis
Bayesian learning
Bayesian Statistics
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Cognitive modeling
Cognitive Processes
Decision Making
Disclosure
Exploratory Behavior
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Information
Information Seeking
Information Utilization
Problem Solving
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning. Problem solving
Satisficing
Schemata (Cognition)
Sequential decision making
Suboptimal tradeoffs
Time Factors
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Summary:Explicit information-seeking actions are needed to evaluate alternative actions in problem-solving tasks. Information-seeking costs are often traded off against the utility of information. We present three experiments that show how subjects adapt to the cost and information structures of environments in a map-navigation task. We found that subjects often stabilize at suboptimal levels of performance. A Bayesian satisficing model (BSM) is proposed and implemented in the ACT-R architecture to predict information-seeking behavior. The BSM uses a local decision rule and a global Bayesian learning mechanism to decide when to stop seeking information. The model matched the human data well, suggesting that adaptation to cost and information structures can be achieved by a simple local decision rule. The local decision rule, however, often limits exploration of the environment and leads to suboptimal performance. We propose that suboptimal performance is an emergent property of the dynamic interactions between cognition and the environment.
ISSN:0010-0285
1095-5623
DOI:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2005.08.002