People are constantly pulled between profiting from the things they know will reap rewards and exploring new options – but it is exploration that uses high-level regions of the brain, according to a study by UCL (University College London) scientists published in Nature on 15th June.
By analysing how people's brains work while gambling, the team led by Dr Nathaniel Daw and Dr John O'Doherty, have found that trying out new things uses the human frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus, whereas falling back on familiar territory involves areas of the brain associated with reward and pleasure. This brain activity may reflect the fact that exploring new options requires overriding the desire for immediate profit.
Dr Daw, UCL Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, said: "Whether you are a stockbroker, a gambler choosing between slot machines or an animal trying to forage for food, the desire to select what seems the richest option is always balanced against the desire to choose a less familiar option that might turn out to serve better. This exploration is often critical to survival.
"Most people switch between exploring and exploiting seamlessly and this has always made it hard to distinguish between someone who is doing something they know will offer the highest pay-out and a person who is testing out new options. By using some of the systems used to program robots to learn and make decisions, we have now found which areas of the brain are responsible for these different behaviours."
The team studied the behaviour of 14 subjects while they were gambling for money using on-screen slot machines. To find out whether the subjects were using exploitative or exploratory gambling strategies, the team compared the human behaviour with the decisions made by intelligent robots. fMRI scans were used to measure brain activity to show which brain areas were activated when exploring or exploiting.
After the task, subjects were asked to describe their choice of strategies. The majority of subjects reported occasionally trying the different slot machines to work out which had the highest payoffs (exploring) and at all other times choosing the slot they thought had the highest payoffs (exploiting). >from *To profit or explore -- it seems that is the question*. June 14, 2006
related context
> the brain's reward for getting a concept is a shot of natural opiates. 'this account may provide a plausible and very simple mechanism for aesthetic and perceptual and cognitive curiosity.' june 20, 2006
> challenge is in the eye of the beholder. 'what one sees in the world is influenced not only by optical and ocular-motor information, but also by one's purposes, physiological state, and emotions.' june 15, 2006
> the energy it takes to make a species. 'we can now quantify biodiversity in terms of energy. it takes more energy than all the fossil fuel people burn on the planet in a year to form one new species of plankton.' may 31, 2006
> evolution: cheats don't always prosper. 'cheaters produce energy rapidly by quickly taking in all the sugar they can and only partially converting it into energy. while this ensures swift energy production for the individual, it is a wasteful method that reduces resources available for the group as a whole.' may 26, 2006
> creative thinking style. 'mental preparation involving inward focus of attention promotes insight even prior to the presentation of a problem. chance favors only the prepared mind.' april 7, 2006
> low latent inhibition: one of the biological bases of creativity. 'the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. low levels of latent inhibition and exceptional flexibility in thought might predispose to mental illness under some conditions and to creative accomplishment under others.' october 13, 2003
> costs of intelligence. 'neural structures and processes are energetically expensive, which should have consequences for survival, reproduction or offspring quality, especially under food shortage.' october 10, 2003
imago
> the explorer dissection
sonic flow
> Profit or explore [stream]
Profit or explore [download]
| permaLink