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When uncertainty spikes, chasing rewards backfires and a more informed strategy pulls ahead

Phys · · 1043 words · By Ingrid Fadelli

Researchers from several universities studied decision-making strategies in animals and humans when searching for food in uncertain environments. Their findings suggest that information-seeking strategies provide more consistent outcomes and reduce risk compared to reward-maximizing strategies in volatile conditions.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-uncertainty-spikes-rewards-backfires-strategy.html

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0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

8 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

info Single Source 4
check_circle Corroborated 2
verified Verified 2
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“Researchers at University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Houston, and University of Pennsylvania carried out a study aimed at better understanding why animals might use certain decision-making strategies when searching for food under uncertain conditions.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided web search results for claim 0 are generic definitions of what a researcher is and do not mention the specific universities or the study in question. No corroborating evidence for the specific institutional collaboration was found in the provided results.
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 24, 2026 · Scientific researchers design studies, analyze data, and build the knowledge base that drives medicine and technology forward. Here’s what the job really…
https://scienceinsights.org/what-is-a-scientific-researcher-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Becoming a researcher opens the door to discovery and innovation in countless fields, from medicine to environmental science. Researchers dive deep into questions that shape our understanding of the w…
https://research.com/advice/how-to-become-a-researcher-educa…
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web search NEUTRAL — Dec 15, 2025 · Researcher work helps organizations remain competitive by developing new services or products, predicting trends or solving problems. Working as a researcher can be intellectually stimu…
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/researche…
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“Their paper, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, suggests that information-seeking strategies are more reliable than reward-seeking ones in this context, as they deliver more predictable outcomes while reducing risk.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results (specifically those referencing the paper title and the Journal of the Royal Society Interface) confirm that information-seeking strategies yield more consistent and less risky outcomes than reward-seeking strategies.
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web search NEUTRAL — Journal information: Journal of the Royal Society Interface.Information-seeking decision strategies yield more consistent and less risky outcomes than reward-seeking strategies in highly uncertain or …
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-uncertainty-spikes-rewards-bac…
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web search NEUTRAL — The Royal Society provides a range of grant schemes to support the UK scientific community and foster collaboration between UK based and overseas scientists.
https://royalsociety.org/
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web search NEUTRAL — About our journals. The Royal Society of Chemistry publishes 57 peer-reviewed journals that cover the core chemical sciences including related fields such as biology, biophysics, energy and environmen…
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals
info
“The team first built a mathematical model of a simple food foraging task. This model simulated an agent that was asked to repeatedly decide between two options (e.g., two different locations or "patches" where food may be).”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the evidence discusses mathematical modeling and foraging tasks in general, none of the provided search results specifically confirm the details of the model used in this specific study (the two-patch agent).
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web search NEUTRAL — The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in many fields, including applied mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences and engine…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_model
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web search NEUTRAL — In their work, they used a food foraging task where an agent moves around a field surrounded by edible and poisonous food. The type of food did not change over time, but it was initialized differently…
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai/article…
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web search NEUTRAL — Peer-reviewed. Research Article. Foraging as an evidence accumulation process. Jacob D. Davidson We form an evidence accumulation model of foraging decisions that describes the process through which a…
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo…
verified
“Using Bayesian belief updating and a technique called dynamic programming, we derived two optimal strategies: one that maximizes expected reward rate (rewardmax), and one that maximizes information about the environment (infomax).”
VERIFIED
Web search results specifically mentioning the paper 'Information-Seeking Decision Strategies Mitigate Risk in Dynamic...' confirm that the rewardmax and infomax models use a Bayesian evidence-gathering process to update beliefs.
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web search NEUTRAL — The rewardmax and infomax models each use the same (Bayesian) evidence-gathering process to update beliefs, obtained from the posterior probabilities about the environment.
https://arxiv.org/html/2503.19107
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web search NEUTRAL — Proper balance between exploitation and exploration is what makes good decisions, which achieve high rewards like payoff or evolutionary fitness. The Infomax principle postulates that maximiza-tion of…
https://ntt-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Infomax-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Nicholas J. Butko and Javier R. Movellan Abstract—Recently, infomax methods of optimal control have begun to reshape how we think about active information gath-ering. We show how such methods can be u…
https://inc.ucsd.edu/~nick/TAMDInfomaxRevisedForPub.pdf
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“The most striking finding was that while the reward-seeking strategy wins on average, the information-seeking strategy produces far more consistent outcomes.”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web search snippets confirm that while reward-maximizing approaches can outperform on average, information-seeking strategies provide more consistent and less risky outcomes.
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web search NEUTRAL — Information-seeking decision strategies yield more consistent and less risky outcomes than reward-seeking strategies in highly uncertain or dynamic environments. Mathematical modeling shows that while…
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-uncertainty-spikes-rewards-bac…
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web search NEUTRAL — The InfoSeek questionnaire was used to assess patients’ strategies when seeking information about the disease. Clinical characteristics and other variables, including disability, quality of life, fati…
https://scispace.com/papers/information-seeking-strategies-o…
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web search NEUTRAL — The study investigates the strategies employed by the students of Cebu Technological University in searching information using digitized resources.
https://www.academia.edu/143408839/The_Information_Seeking_S…
info
“My collaborators Krešimir Josić (co-author on this paper), Hyunjoong Kim, and I recently posted a preprint exploring how this kind of sequential decision-making plays out in groups rather than single agents”
SINGLE SOURCE
Google Scholar confirms Zachary P. Kilpatrick's identity and field of study (Decision Making, Collective Behavior), but the provided evidence does not specifically confirm the existence of a preprint with the named co-authors regarding group sequential decision-making.
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web search NEUTRAL — Zachary P Kilpatrick Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado Boulder Verified email at colorado.edu - Homepage Mathematical Neuroscience Decision Making Collective Behavior …
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=w-RYt7kAAAAJ&hl=en
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web search NEUTRAL — In changing en-vironments, these delays can outweigh the benefits of centralized control, making decentralized strategies advantageous in large groups. This raises a key question: how can groups imple…
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08840
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web search NEUTRAL — Read articles by Zachary P. Kilpatrick on ScienceDirect, the world's leading source for scientific, technical, and medical research.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/author/25641296500/zachary-p-k…
info
“The researchers are currently also conducting real-world experiments involving human participants.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The search results provided for this claim are generic guides on how to run experiments with humans or lists of unethical experiments; they do not provide evidence that this specific research team is currently conducting human experiments.
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web search NEUTRAL — The research team conducting the study usually develops these custom applications; and they can vary from a simple program to present stimuli and record reaction times to more complex programs (intera…
https://www.academia.edu/144380204/Running_Behavioral_Experi…
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web search NEUTRAL — Human experimentation in psychology has a dark history.Throughout his research, Humphreys observed hundreds of acts of fellatio and interviewed many of the participants. He found that 54% of his subje…
https://www.bestpsychologydegrees.com/30-most-disturbing-hum…
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web search NEUTRAL — Student research involving human participants must be reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) before any interaction (e.g., recruitment, data collection) with human participants m…
https://www.societyforscience.org/isef/international-rules/h…
verified
“Nicholas W. Barendregt et al, Information-seeking decision strategies mitigate risk in dynamic, uncertain environments, Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2026). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2025.1308.”
VERIFIED
Multiple sources, including Google Scholar and specific web search results, confirm the paper title, the authors (Nicholas W. Barendregt et al.), the journal (Journal of the Royal Society Interface), and the 2026 publication date.
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web search NEUTRAL — To survive in dynamic and uncertain environments, individuals must develop effective decision strategies that balance information gathering and decision commitment.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11975046/
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web search NEUTRAL — Nicholas W. Barendregt et al, Information-seeking decision strategies mitigate risk in dynamic, uncertain environments, Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2026).
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-uncertainty-spikes-rewards-bac…
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web search NEUTRAL — Information-Seeking Decision Strategies Mitigate Risk in Dynamic, Uncertain Environments.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cS6Lmt8AAAAJ&hl=en
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.