Topic: lapses

When engaged with a specific task, humans and other animals occasionally make seemingly irrational decisions known as "lapses", even in static and well-learned environments. Given they serve no obvious reward-maximizing purpose, these choices are commonly attributed to disengagement, distraction or sensorimotor noise. However, "lapses" could also be related to a decision-makers' own, hidden objectives. We know, for example, that exploratory objectives can better account for lapses than undirected noise in certain models. Critically, however, there are multiple mechanisms for exploration and we