Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31980535›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020

Uncertainty in learning, choice, and visual fixation.

Hrvoje Stojić, Jacob L Orquin, Peter Dayan, Raymond J Dolan, Maarten Speekenbrink

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
2.2field-weighted citation impact, top 13% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
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  4. Article
  5. Decision-Making in Repeated Games: Insights from Active Inference.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
    Review
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
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  12. Human subjects exploit a cognitive map for credit assignment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021
    Article
  13. Uncertainty in learning, choice, and visual fixation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.

Hrvoje StojićMax Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom; h.stojic@ucl.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-9699-9052
Jacob L OrquinDepartment of Management/MAPP, Aarhus University, Aarhus 8210, Denmark.
Peter DayanDepartment of Computational Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen 72076, Germany.ORCID 0000-0003-3476-1839
Raymond J DolanMax Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom.
Maarten SpeekenbrinkDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0003-3221-1091
Prostate Cancer Research · GBMax Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics · DEReykjavík University · ISUniversity College London · GB

Funding

Wellcome Trust 098362/Z/12/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Uncertainty plays a critical role in reinforcement learning and decision making. However, exactly how it influences behavior remains unclear. Multiarmed-bandit tasks offer an ideal test bed, since computational tools such as approximate Kalman filters can closely characterize the interplay between trial-by-trial values, uncertainty, learning, and choice. To gain additional insight into learning and choice processes, we obtained data from subjects' overt allocation of gaze. The estimated value and estimation uncertainty of options influenced what subjects looked at before choosing; these same quantities also influenced choice, as additionally did fixation itself. A momentary measure of uncertainty in the form of absolute prediction errors determined how long participants looked at the obtained outcomes. These findings affirm the importance of uncertainty in multiple facets of behavior and help delineate its effects on decision making.

Indexed as

Reinforcement, PsychologyAdolescentAdultAlgorithmsDecision MakingExploratory BehaviorFemaleFixation, OcularHumansMaleTask Performance and AnalysisUncertaintyYoung Adultdecision makingexploration–exploitationreinforcement learninguncertaintyvisual fixation

Identifiers

PMID31980535
PMCPMC7022187
OpenAlexW2960149941

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.