Balancing safety and efficiency in human decision making

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.