Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a computational framework for an active agent to learn behaviors on the basis of a scalar reward feedback. The theory of reinforcement learning was developed in the artificial intelligence community with intuitions from psychology and animal learning theory and mathematical basis in control theory. It has been successfully applied to tasks like game playing and robot control. Reinforcement learning gives a theoretical account of behavioral learning in humans and animals and underlying brain mechanisms, such as dopamine signaling and the basal ganglia circuit. Reinforcement learning serves as the “common language” for engineers, biologists, and cognitive scientists to exchange their problems and findings in goal-directed behaviors. This chapter introduces the basic theoretical framework of reinforcement learning and reviews its impacts in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive science.