Context-dependent outcome encoding in human reinforcement learning

A wealth of evidence in perceptual and economic decision-making research suggests that the subjective assessment one option is influenced by context. series studies provides same coding principles apply to situations where decisions are shaped past outcomes, is, reinforcement-learning situations. In bandit tasks, human behavior explained models assuming individuals do not learn objective value an outcome, but rather its subjective, context-dependent representation. We argue that, while such outcome context-dependence may be informationally or ecologically optimal, it concomitantly undermines capacity generalize value-based knowledge new contexts — sometimes creating apparent decision paradoxes.