Table 1. Behavioural analysis of sequential inference strategies.
In both younger and older adults, random effects model comparison results strongly favour S2, a model in which agents perform joint inference over the current and immediately preceding states. Examination of the posterior probabilities, however, suggests that a significant proportion of subjects in both groups performed inference over sequences of length three or more (model comparison results are illustrated in Fig 3c–3f).
| Model (sequence length) | Summed BIC | BIC compared to worst model | Posterior probability | Exceedance probability | Mean Pseudo R2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Younger adults (n = 43) | |||||
| S1 | -3901.1 | 0.9 | 0.056 | <0.001 | 0.613 |
| S2 | -3809.7 | 92.2 | 0.596 | 0.996 | 0.625 |
| S3 | -3822.6 | 79.3 | 0.256 | 0.004 | 0.624 |
| S4 | -3887.4 | 14.6 | 0.053 | <0.001 | 0.614 |
| S5 | -3902.0 | 0 | 0.039 | <0.001 | 0.612 |
| Older adults (n = 36) | |||||
| S1 | -4554.5 | 0 | 0.095 | <0.001 | 0.376 |
| S2 | -4528.5 | 26 | 0.518 | 0.990 | 0.380 |
| S3 | -4537.7 | 16.8 | 0.216 | 0.010 | 0.379 |
| S4 | -4547.1 | 7.4 | 0.073 | <0.001 | 0.377 |
| S5 | -4554.4 | 0.1 | 0.098 | <0.001 | 0.376 |