Active inference and learning

Friston, Karl, FitzGerald, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3855-1591, Rigoli, Francesco, Schwartenbeck, Philipp, O'Doherty, John and Pezzulo, Giovanni (2016) Active inference and learning. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 68. pp. 862-879. ISSN 0149-7634

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Abstract

This paper offers an active inference account of choice behaviour and learning. It focuses on the distinction between goal-directed and habitual behaviour and how they contextualise each other. We show that habits emerge naturally (and autodidactically) from sequential policy optimisation when agents are equipped with state-action policies. In active inference, behaviour has explorative (epistemic) and exploitative (pragmatic) aspects that are sensitive to ambiguity and risk respectively, where epistemic (ambiguity-resolving) behaviour enables pragmatic (reward-seeking) behaviour and the subsequent emergence of habits. Although goal-directed and habitual policies are usually associated with model-based and model-free schemes, we find the more important distinction is between belief-free and belief-based schemes. The underlying (variational) belief updating provides a comprehensive (if metaphorical) process theory for several phenomena, including the transfer of dopamine responses, reversal learning, habit formation and devaluation. Finally, we show that active inference reduces to a classical (Bellman) scheme, in the absence of ambiguity.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Nov 2016 00:40
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2024 17:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/61446
DOI:	10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.06.022

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