Alexandre Lietard – How does metacognition influence the way we learn?

Supervisor: Kobe Desender (KU Leuven)

Alexandre Lietard, supervised by Kobe Desender, studies how confidence helps us balance exploring new possibilities and exploiting what we already know, using a Bayesian framework to model adaptive behavior.

Learning about the value of different options, whether something is good or bad for us, is a fundamental process underlying decisions from choosing a dish at a restaurant to finding a job we enjoy. My PhD project aims to examine the role of confidence in this adaptive behavior, particularly how and when it helps to balance the trade-off between exploring new options and exploiting the one believed to be best. This questions will be addressed using a Bayesian framework applied to participants’ behavior.