A nonlinear relationship between prediction errors and learning rates in human reinforcement-learning

Boluwatife Ikwunne; Jolie Parham; Erdem Pulcu

doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013445

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

A nonlinear relationship between prediction errors and learning rates in human reinforcement-learning

Boluwatife Ikwunne,

Roles Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
⨯
Jolie Parham,

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
⨯
Erdem Pulcu

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: erdem.pulcu@psych.ox.ac.uk, pulerd@gmail.com

Affiliations Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Computational Psychiatry Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Neuroscience, Society and Ethics Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2170-0677

⨯

A nonlinear relationship between prediction errors and learning rates in human reinforcement-learning

Boluwatife Ikwunne,
Jolie Parham,
Erdem Pulcu

Published: September 12, 2025
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013445

About the Authors

Boluwatife Ikwunne

Roles Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Jolie Parham

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Erdem Pulcu

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: erdem.pulcu@psych.ox.ac.uk, pulerd@gmail.com

Affiliations Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Computational Psychiatry Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Neuroscience, Society and Ethics Lab, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2170-0677

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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Human learning
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