2026-08-09 · paper-digest
Honda et al.: Measuring Which Options Are Worth Trying by How Much Uncertainty They Remove — Fukai Reads
A paper by Honda and five co-authors at the University of Tokyo proposing the B-EUR model, which formalises the value of trying a candidate option as the uncertainty about action-outcome relations it is expected to remove. Tested through simulation and human experiments (44 participants) on a graph-shape guessing task, the value of trying, enjoyment and choice frequency all followed an inverted U peaking at intermediate generalizability. Outcome discriminability affected choice behaviour but showed no significant effect on subjective ratings. An arXiv preprint posted 6 August 2026, not yet peer reviewed.