Optimality

…a polynomial method that proves optimality in new settings and connects these developments to longstanding questions about the prevalence of optimal gaps.

Our scarcest resource is time. Humans and other animals allocate their time on a vast number of different activities – from reading a paper, pursuing a degree, or foraging for food. Optimal, reward-maximizing, behavioral strategies must balance expected future gains with irrecoverable time investment. However, humans and other animals often succumb to cognitive biases that lead to suboptimal payoffs such as considering sunk costs when investing time to obtain future payoffs. Here we argue that humans, rats, and mice invest time according to optimal predictions given available evidence and subj