Dear Professor Demaree,

is your Q&A launch also related to geosciences where exploration (search of mineral deposits) and exploitation (extracting minerals, rocks and ore from a mine) are well-defined technical terms, particularly in my focal discipline.

Glückauf !

H.G.Dill

Growth of Mineral Resources for Exploration vs. Growth of Ore Reserves for Exploitation. These 2 KPIs are highly informative for the current status of Mining Industry.  

No, I'm sorry -- I am referring to a psychological construct concerning one's preference to either select an outcome with the highest anticipated reward (exploitation) versus selecting other outcomes with lesser expected rewards in part to learn whether the reward structure of those venues has changed (exploration). This is also occasionally called "earning" versus "learning," respectively.

Thank you for your interest in my question!

Sincerely,

Heath

Heath, the answer may depend on particular task. If you are doing experimental economics, then certain behavior (like exploitation of other's altruism) can lead to short term profit, but can destroy cooperation. But this is a problem with interactive strategies and co-learning.

If your agent investigates unknown profile of payoff as the function of his strategies (that does not change in time), then he can either exploit benefits from local maximum or continue search of global maximum.

Hi Yuri:

Thanks so much. I agree that measuring exploitation/exploration in dyads can involve many layers of analysis (immediate versus delayed reward; interpersonal dynamics, etc.). I'm looking for a measure that doesn't involve interpersonal relationships -- for example, a (computerized) task that simply assesses the degree to which someone selects the "known" optimal payout versus exploring other options.

Thanks again!

Heath

Exploration is more risky activity than eplotation. In the cse of explotation has less uncertanties to be afford, is better knwon the economic and geociences parameters.

For exploration you need more information for genetic tip for metallic and nonmetallic mineral deposit and economic geology.

I think foraging tasks might be useful for your purpose; there are a lot of existing computerized versions and these usually have established methods, i.e. applying a simple model-based measure, to assess the degree of "exploration".

you need to know the low min cost for exploration,and reach max exploitation.  

Hi Percy:

Thanks! Having trouble finding them myself, I wonder whether you might be able to provide a link or 2 to the foraging tasks to which you are referring.

Thanks in advance for your response and consideration!

Heath

Hi,

I've provided a few citations that may help (far from exhaustive!):

Glass, B.D. (2007). Modeling Human Foraging. Talk presented at University of Texas Cognition and Perception Area Seminar. December 7, 2007.  Austin, TX

Glass, B. D., Maddox, W. T., Markman, A. B., & Schnyer, D. M. (2009). Exploration and exploitation in a foraging resource acquisition task: Implications from sleep deprivation. Military Psychology, 21(S1), S46.

Glass, B. D., Maddox, W. T., Bowen, C., Savarie, Z. R., Matthews, M. D., Markman, A. B., & Schnyer, D. M. (2011). The effects of 24-hour sleep deprivation on the exploration–exploitation trade-off. Biological rhythm research,42(2), 99-110.

Volchenkov, D., Helbach, J., Tscherepanow, M., & Küheel, S. (2013). Exploration-exploitation Trade-off in a Treasure Hunting Game. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 299, 101-121.

Roberts, M. E., & Goldstone, R. L. (2006). EPICURE: An Agent-Based Foraging Model. In Artificial life X: proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (Vol. 10, p. 379).

Thanks, Percy.

In the oil business the answer is simple. Exploration wells are drilled first, then if it was a discovery exploitation wells are drilled. Therefore the objective measure is the relative certainty of the outcome. The odds for a successful exploration-wildcat well are very poor, while the odds for a successful exploitation- initial step-out well, are very good.