Balancing safety and efficiency in human decision-making

Journal article

The safety-efficiency dilemma describes the problem of maintaining safety during efficient exploration and is a special case of the exploration-exploitation dilemma in the face of potential dangers. Conventional exploration-exploitation solutions collapse punishment and reward into a single feedback signal, whereby early losses can be overcome by later gains. However, the brain has a separate system for Pavlovian fear learning, suggesting a possible computational advantage to maintaining a specific fear memory during exploratory decision-making. In a series of simulations, we show this promotes safe but efficient learning and is optimised by arbitrating Pavlovian avoidance of instrumental decision-making according to uncertainty. We provide a basic test of this model in a simple human approach-withdrawal experiment in virtual reality and show that this flexible avoidance model captures choice and reaction times. These results show that the Pavlovian fear system has a more sophisticated role in decision-making than previously thought, by shaping flexible exploratory behaviour in a computationally precise manner.

Authors: Mahajan, P; Tong, S; Lee, SW; Seymour, B

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications
• Journal: eLife
• Volume: 13
• Article number: RP101371
• Publication date: 2025-10-02
• DOI: 10.7554/elife.101371
• EISSN: 2050084X
• ISSN: 2050084X
• Language: English
• Keywords: reinforcement learning; Pavlovian bias; exploration-exploitation trade-off; Human; safety-efficiency trade-off