ArticlePLoS computational biology2019
Tonic exploration governs both flexibility and lapses.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex-biased computations underlying differential set shift performance in mice.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Foraging models explain human exploration in uncertain tasks.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Perceptual response patterns in rhesus macaque attentional set shifting are associated with inflexible behavior.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural geometry in the human hippocampus enables generalization across spatial position and gaze.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Pupil size predicts exploration through critical slowing in prefrontal dynamics.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Noisy Memory Generates Value in Changing Environments.Adaptive behavior · 2025Article
- Transient frontopolar cortex stimulation induces prolonged disruption to counterfactual processing.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Individual differences in sequential decision-making.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Pupil size predicts the onset of exploration and changes in prefrontal dynamics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Social aloofness is associated with non-social explore-exploit decisions.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Beyond reward learning deficits: Exploration-exploitation instability reveals computational heterogeneity in value-based decision making in early psychosis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Humans forage for reward in reinforcement learning tasks.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Semi-orthogonal subspaces for value mediate a binding and generalization trade-off.Nature neuroscience · 2024Article
- Dopamine and Norepinephrine Differentially Mediate the Exploration-Exploitation Tradeoff.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Irrational choices via a curvilinear representational geometry for value.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Active reinforcement learning versus action bias and hysteresis: control with a mixture of experts and nonexperts.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Widespread coding of navigational variables in prefrontal cortex.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Distinct cortico-striatal compartments drive competition between adaptive and automatized behavior.PloS one · 2023Article
- Hierarchical organization of rhesus macaque behavior.Oxford open neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In many cognitive tasks, lapses (spontaneous errors) are tacitly dismissed as the result of nuisance processes like sensorimotor noise, fatigue, or disengagement. However, some lapses could also be caused by exploratory noise: randomness in behavior that facilitates learning in changing environments. If so, then strategic processes would need only up-regulate (rather than generate) exploration to adapt to a changing environment. This view predicts that more frequent lapses should be associated with greater flexibility because these behaviors share a common cause. Here, we report that when rhesus macaques performed a set-shifting task, lapse rates were negatively correlated with perseverative error frequency across sessions, consistent with a common basis in exploration. The results could not be explained by local failures to learn. Furthermore, chronic exposure to cocaine, which is known to impair cognitive flexibility, did increase perseverative errors, but, surprisingly, also improved overall set-shifting task performance by reducing lapse rates. We reconcile these results with a state-switching model in which cocaine decreases exploration by deepening attractor basins corresponding to rule states. These results support the idea that exploratory noise contributes to lapses, affecting rule-based decision-making even when it has no strategic value, and suggest that one key mechanism for regulating exploration may be the depth of rule states.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.