The DOI matches its Crossref record; 106 of the 106 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Thermodynamics as a theory of decision-making with information-processing costs
Open accessAbstract
Perfectly rational decision-makers maximize expected utility, but crucially ignore the resource costs incurred when determining optimal actions. Here, we propose a thermodynamically inspired formalization of bounded rational decision-making where information processing is modelled as state changes in thermodynamic systems that can be quantified by differences in free energy. By optimizing a free energy, bounded rational decision-makers trade off expected utility gains and information-processing costs measured by the relative entropy. As a result, the bounded rational decision-making problem can be rephrased in terms of well-known variational principles from statistical physics. In the limit when computational costs are ignored, the maximum expected utility principle is recovered. We discuss links to existing decision-making frameworks and applications to human decision-making experiments that are at odds with expected utility theory. Since most of the mathematical machinery can be borrowed from statistical physics, the main contribution is to re-interpret the formalism of thermodynamic free-energy differences in terms of bounded rational decision-making and to discuss its relationship to human decision-making experiments.
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Cites
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Toward a rational and mechanistic account of mental effort
Shenhav, A., Musslick, S., Lieder, F., Kool, W., Griffiths, T. L., Cohen, J. D., & Botvinick, M. M. (2017) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev-neuro-072116-031526 · Cited by 1,077
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Metadata
- Authors
- Ortega, P. A., & Braun, D. A.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2013-05-08
- Volume
- 469
- Issue
- 2153
- Pages
- 20120683
- ISSN
- 1364-5021 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2946
- OpenAlex
- W2101692583
- Cited by
- 255
- References
- 106
- FWCI
- 12.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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