41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
Abstract
How does time pressure influence attitudes towards uncertainty? When time is limited, do people engage in different
exploration strategies? We study human exploration in a range
of four-armed bandit tasks with different reward distributions
and manipulate the available time for each decision (limited
vs. unlimited). Through multiple behavioral and model-based
analyses, we show that reactions towards uncertainty are influenced by time pressure. Specifically, participants seek out uncertain options when time is unlimited, but avoid uncertainty
under time pressure. Moreover, larger relative differences in
uncertainty between options slowed down reaction times and
dampened the drift rate of a linear ballistic accumulator model.
These results shed new light on the differential effect of uncertainty and time pressure on human exploration
