Two pathways to resolve relational inconsistencies

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barak, Tomer, Loewenstein, Yonatan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912547672686592
author Barak, Tomer
Loewenstein, Yonatan
author_facet Barak, Tomer
Loewenstein, Yonatan
contents When individuals encounter observations that violate their expectations, when will they adjust their expectations and when will they maintain them despite these observations? For example, when individuals expect objects of type A to be smaller than objects B, but observe the opposite, when will they adjust their expectation about the relationship between the two objects (to A being larger than B)? Naively, one would predict that the larger the violation, the greater the adaptation. However, experiments reveal that when violations are extreme, individuals are more likely to hold on to their prior expectations rather than adjust them. To address this puzzle, we tested the adaptation of artificial neural networks (ANNs) capable of relational learning and found a similar phenomenon: Standard learning dynamics dictates that small violations would lead to adjustments of expected relations while larger ones would be resolved using a different mechanism -- a change in object representation that bypasses the need for adaptation of the relational expectations. These results suggest that the experimentally-observed stability of prior expectations when facing large expectation violations is a natural consequence of learning dynamics and does not require any additional mechanisms. We conclude by discussing the effect of intermediate adaptation steps on this stability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_05809
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Two pathways to resolve relational inconsistencies
Barak, Tomer
Loewenstein, Yonatan
Neurons and Cognition
Artificial Intelligence
When individuals encounter observations that violate their expectations, when will they adjust their expectations and when will they maintain them despite these observations? For example, when individuals expect objects of type A to be smaller than objects B, but observe the opposite, when will they adjust their expectation about the relationship between the two objects (to A being larger than B)? Naively, one would predict that the larger the violation, the greater the adaptation. However, experiments reveal that when violations are extreme, individuals are more likely to hold on to their prior expectations rather than adjust them. To address this puzzle, we tested the adaptation of artificial neural networks (ANNs) capable of relational learning and found a similar phenomenon: Standard learning dynamics dictates that small violations would lead to adjustments of expected relations while larger ones would be resolved using a different mechanism -- a change in object representation that bypasses the need for adaptation of the relational expectations. These results suggest that the experimentally-observed stability of prior expectations when facing large expectation violations is a natural consequence of learning dynamics and does not require any additional mechanisms. We conclude by discussing the effect of intermediate adaptation steps on this stability.
title Two pathways to resolve relational inconsistencies
topic Neurons and Cognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05809