Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39948273›Full record

ReviewCommunications psychology2025

Understanding learning through uncertainty and bias.

Rasmus Bruckner, Hauke R Heekeren, Matthew R Nassar

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Communications psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
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

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Review
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

3 authors.

Rasmus BrucknerDepartment of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. rasmus.bruckner@fu-berlin.de.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3033-6299
Hauke R HeekerenDepartment of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Matthew R NassarRobert J. & Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5397-535X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Learning allows humans and other animals to make predictions about the environment that facilitate adaptive behavior. Casting learning as predictive inference can shed light on normative cognitive mechanisms that improve predictions under uncertainty. Drawing on normative learning models, we illustrate how learning should be adjusted to different sources of uncertainty, including perceptual uncertainty, risk, and uncertainty due to environmental changes. Such models explain many hallmarks of human learning in terms of specific statistical considerations that come into play when updating predictions under uncertainty. However, humans also display systematic learning biases that deviate from normative models, as studied in computational psychiatry. Some biases can be explained as normative inference conditioned on inaccurate prior assumptions about the environment, while others reflect approximations to Bayesian inference aimed at reducing cognitive demands. These biases offer insights into cognitive mechanisms underlying learning and how they might go awry in psychiatric illness.

Identifiers

PMID39948273
PMCPMC11825852

What OpenQuestion holds

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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.