# Modeling and Interpreting Real-world Human Risk Decision Making with Inverse Reinforcement Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05803 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05803/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Inverse reinforcement learning, one of 13 directions in Offline RL and imitation learning from data.
- Builds on 1 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Jun 2019.

## Placed in

- Offline RL and imitation learning from data / [Inverse reinforcement learning](https://mlsanity.com/offlinerl/inverse-reinforcement-learning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Coordinated Multi-Agent Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03121/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Reinforcement Learning Interventions on Boundedly Rational Human Agents in Frictionful Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14923/) (2024)
- [Towards human-compatible autonomous car: A study of non-verbal Turing test in automated driving with affective transition modelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02908/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We model human decision-making behaviors in a risk-taking task using inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) for the purposes of understanding real human decision making under risk. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work applying IRL to reveal the implicit reward function in human risk-taking decision making and to interpret risk-prone and risk-averse decision-making policies. We hypothesize that the state history (e.g. rewards and decisions in previous trials) are related to the human reward function, which leads to risk-averse and risk-prone decisions. We design features that reflect these factors in the reward function of IRL and learn the corresponding weight that is interpretable as the importance of features. The results confirm the sub-optimal risk-related decisions of human-driven by the personalized reward function. In particular, the risk-prone person tends to decide based on the current pump number, while the risk-averse person relies on burst information from the previous trial and the average end status. Our results demonstrate that IRL is an effective tool to model human decision-making behavior, as well as to help interpret the human psychological process in risk decision-making.