arXiv:2607.28894cs.AIstat.ML2026-07

用贝叶斯实验设计优化认知实验环境,提升参数推断效率

Identifying Informative Environments for Cognition Parameter Inference via Bayesian Experimental Design

论文配图:Identifying Informative Environments for Cognition Parameter Inference via Bayesian Experimental Design
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 将实验环境作为变量,用贝叶斯实验设计自动寻找最优实验设置
  • 相比精确蒙特卡洛方法,计算成本降低但排名结果几乎一致
  • 揭示不同目标下无统一最优环境,存在信息增益与效率的权衡

计算认知建模旨在推断行为背后的潜在认知机制。贝叶斯逆向规划为此类推断提供了原则性框架,但其成功高度依赖实验环境。现有方法通常将环境视为固定,未解决哪些认知实验最有利于参数推断的问题。本文将认知规划实验设计建模为贝叶斯实验设计(BED)问题,将实验环境作为设计变量。我们建立了精确的蒙特卡洛BED基准,并提出一种摊销式贝叶斯实验设计框架,实现高效后验推断与设计评估。在Mouselab-MDP过程追踪范式上的实验表明,摊销式BED与精确蒙特卡洛BED的环境排序高度一致,同时显著降低计算成本。进一步发现,不存在对所有认知推断目标都最优的单一环境,揭示了期望信息增益、后验可恢复性与信息效率之间的权衡。该研究为贝叶斯参数推断提供了一个原则性的认知实验设计框架。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Computational cognitive modeling seeks to infer latent cognitive mechanisms underlying observed behavior. Bayesian inverse planning provides a principled framework for such inference, but its success depends critically on the experimental environment. Existing approaches typically treat environments as fixed, leaving open the question of which cognitive experiments are most informative for cognition parameter inference. We formulate the design of cognitive planning experiments as a Bayesian Experimental Design (BED) problem, treating the experimental environment as the design variable. We establish an exact Monte Carlo BED benchmark and introduce an amortized Bayesian experimental design framework for efficient posterior inference and design evaluation. Experiments on the Mouselab-MDP process-tracing paradigm show that amortized BED closely matches the environment rankings of exact Monte Carlo BED while substantially reducing computational cost. We further show that no single environment is uniformly optimal across cognitive inference objectives, revealing trade-offs between expected information gain, posterior recoverability, and information efficiency. These results provide a principled framework for designing informative cognitive experiments for Bayesian parameter inference.

认知建模贝叶斯实验设计参数推断实验优化

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。