The role of intolerance of uncertainty when solving the exploration-exploitation dilemma

Abstract

When making behavioural decisions, individuals need to balance between exploiting known options or exploring new ones. How individuals solve this exploration-exploitation dilemma (EED) is a key research question across psychology, leading to attempting to disentangle the cognitive mechanisms behind it. A potential predictive factor of performance in an EED is intolerance of uncertainty (IU), an individual difference factor referring to the extent to which uncertain situations are reported to be aversive. Here, we present the results of a series of exploratory analyses in which we tested the relationship between IU and performance in an EED task. For this, we compiled data from 3 experiments, in which participants received the opportunity to exploit different movements in order to avoid a painful stimulus and approach rewards. For decomposing performance in this task, we used different computational models previously employed in studies on the EED. Then, the parameters of the winning model were correlated with the scores of participants in the IU scale. Correlational and cluster analyses, within both frequentists and Bayesian frameworks, did not provide strong evidence for a relation between EED and IU, apart from the decay rate and the subscale “tendency to become paralyzed in the face of uncertainty”. Given the theoretical relation between EED and IU, we propose research with different experimental paradigms.

Landau model for illustrating the learning and unlearning process of nociplastic pain

“…Extensions of the model can be used to address learning/ unlearning of other mental syndromes such as anxiety, depression, functional or somatoform symptoms, and addictions, which seem to have a common underlying mechanism (79,88). It is interesting to notice that biopsychosocial loops are in both, hypervigilance bias and curiosity bias, landscapes, as might happen with screen addictions where curiosity bias is looking for the sensation of surprise.…”

“…This is in line to the proposal of extending criticality and symmetry breaking, where the living state of matter is interpreted as an ongoing extended or critical transition, always transient to a renewed organism (69). We conceive the learning process in the line to the proposal given in the Enactive plus Simondonian approach (88), which emphasizes that "growth and transformation processes can arguably be seen as fundamental for self-individuation for humans, not only subsistence." This devenir seems to be in line with the process of individuation proposed by Simondon as the generation of metastable states by transforming tensions in the environment or in the society (91).…”

Neural and psychophysiological markers of intolerance of uncertainty

“…These findings suggest Running Head: Editorial for SI that prospective intolerance of uncertainty may play an important role in modulating avoidance behaviour under uncertain threat. Krypotos et al, (2022) examined how individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty may relate to the exploration-exploitation dilemma (EED). The authors used a computational modelling framework together with both frequentist and Bayesian correlation analyses.…”