TY - GEN
T1 - A Dual Process Theory of Optimistic Cognition
AU - Sunehag, Peter
AU - Hutter, Marcus
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014. All rights reserved.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Optimism is a prevalent bias in human cognition including variations like self-serving beliefs, illusions of control and overly positive views of one's own future. Further, optimism has been linked with both success and happiness. In fact, it has been described as a part of human mental well-being which has otherwise been assumed to be about being connected to reality. In reality, only people suffering from depression are realistic. Here we study a formalization of optimism within a dual process framework and study its usefulness beyond human needs in a way that also applies to artificial reinforcement learning agents. Optimism enables systematic exploration which is essential in an (partially) unknown world. The key property of an optimistic hypothesis is that if it is not contradicted when one acts greedily with respect to it, then one is well rewarded even if it is wrong.
AB - Optimism is a prevalent bias in human cognition including variations like self-serving beliefs, illusions of control and overly positive views of one's own future. Further, optimism has been linked with both success and happiness. In fact, it has been described as a part of human mental well-being which has otherwise been assumed to be about being connected to reality. In reality, only people suffering from depression are realistic. Here we study a formalization of optimism within a dual process framework and study its usefulness beyond human needs in a way that also applies to artificial reinforcement learning agents. Optimism enables systematic exploration which is essential in an (partially) unknown world. The key property of an optimistic hypothesis is that if it is not contradicted when one acts greedily with respect to it, then one is well rewarded even if it is wrong.
KW - Optimality
KW - Optimism
KW - Rationality
KW - Reinforcement Learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84962293983&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014
SP - 2949
EP - 2954
BT - Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
T2 - 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2014
Y2 - 23 July 2014 through 26 July 2014
ER -