Optimal Behavioral Hierarchy

Alec Solway, Carlos Diuk, Natalia Córdova, Debbie Yee, Andrew G. Barto, Yael Niv, Matthew M. Botvinick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

113 Scopus citations

Abstract

Human behavior has long been recognized to display hierarchical structure: actions fit together into subtasks, which cohere into extended goal-directed activities. Arranging actions hierarchically has well established benefits, allowing behaviors to be represented efficiently by the brain, and allowing solutions to new tasks to be discovered easily. However, these payoffs depend on the particular way in which actions are organized into a hierarchy, the specific way in which tasks are carved up into subtasks. We provide a mathematical account for what makes some hierarchies better than others, an account that allows an optimal hierarchy to be identified for any set of tasks. We then present results from four behavioral experiments, suggesting that human learners spontaneously discover optimal action hierarchies.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere1003779
JournalPLoS computational biology
Volume10
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 14 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Genetics
  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
  • Molecular Biology
  • Ecology
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Modeling and Simulation

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