mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Hindsight Credit Assignment

arXiv 1912.02503 ↗First posted 5 Dec 2019cs.LG stat.MLcited by 74

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Abstract (arXiv)

We consider the problem of efficient credit assignment in reinforcement learning. In order to efficiently and meaningfully utilize new data, we propose to explicitly assign credit to past decisions based on the likelihood of them having led to the observed outcome. This approach uses new information in hindsight, rather than employing foresight. Somewhat surprisingly, we show that value functions can be rewritten through this lens, yielding a new family of algorithms. We study the properties of these algorithms, and empirically show that they successfully address important credit assignment challenges, through a set of illustrative tasks.

Key facts. Cited by 74 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 5 Dec 2019.

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 13; 2022: 9; 2023: 8; 2024: 9; 2025: 8; 2026: 27.

74 papers.

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  1. 2021Decision Transformer: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modelingcited by 1,528
  2. 2021Recurrent Model-Free RL Can Be a Strong Baseline for Many POMDPscited by 115
  3. 2024Dense Reward for Free in Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedbackcited by 77
  4. 2026Hindsight Credit Assignment for Long-Horizon LLM Agentscited by 51
  5. 2021Learning Long-Term Reward Redistribution via Randomized Return Decompositioncited by 33
  6. 2021Synthetic Returns for Long-Term Credit Assignmentcited by 27
  7. 2021An Information-Theoretic Perspective on Credit Assignment in Reinforcement Learningcited by 20
  8. 2022Reinforcement Learning for Branch-and-Bound Optimisation using Retrospective Trajectoriescited by 19
  9. 2023Large Sequence Models for Sequential Decision-Making: A Surveycited by 19
  10. 2022Hypernetworks for Zero-shot Transfer in Reinforcement Learningcited by 18
  11. 2021Human-in-the-Loop Deep Reinforcement Learning with Application to Autonomous Drivingcited by 16
  12. 2022Redefining Counterfactual Explanations for Reinforcement Learning: Overview, Challenges and Opportunitiescited by 12
38 more
  1. 2024Hindsight PRIORs for Reward Learning from Human Preferencescited by 12
  2. 2023Would I have gotten that reward? Long-term credit assignment by counterfactual contribution analysiscited by 10
  3. 2022Actual Causality and Responsibility Attribution in Decentralized Partially Observable Markov Decision Processescited by 8
  4. 2022Lazy-MDPs: Towards Interpretable Reinforcement Learning by Learning When to Actcited by 7
  5. 2026HISR: Hindsight Information Modulated Segmental Process Rewards For Multi-turn Agentic Reinforcement Learningcited by 7
  6. 2021Preferential Temporal Difference Learningcited by 6
  7. 2021Policy Gradients Incorporating the Futurecited by 6
  8. 2026Self-Evolving Agents with Anytime-Valid Certificatescited by 6
  9. 2021Towards Practical Credit Assignment for Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 5
  10. 2025Simultaneous Multi-objective Alignment Across Verifiable and Non-verifiable Rewardscited by 5
  11. 2026SD-Search: On-Policy Hindsight Self-Distillation for Search-Augmented Reasoningcited by 5
  12. 2022Selective Credit Assignmentcited by 4
  13. 2022Curiosity in Hindsight: Intrinsic Exploration in Stochastic Environmentscited by 4
  14. 2023Hindsight-DICE: Stable Credit Assignment for Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  15. 2026HiMPO: Hindsight-Informed Memory Policy Optimization for Less-Entangled Credit in Long-Horizon Agentscited by 4
  16. 2022A Survey on Explainable Reinforcement Learning: Concepts, Algorithms, Challengescited by 3
  17. 2023PushWorld: A benchmark for manipulation planning with tools and movable obstaclescited by 3
  18. 2024Hindsight Preference Learning for Offline Preference-based Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
  19. 2024Action abstractions for amortized samplingcited by 3
  20. 2026Privileged Likelihood Is Not Automatically Value: Three Checks for Token Credit in On-Policy Self-Distillationcited by 3
  21. 2021Adaptive Pairwise Weights for Temporal Credit Assignmentcited by 2
  22. 2022Interpretable and Effective Reinforcement Learning for Attacking against Graph-based Rumor Detectioncited by 2
  23. 2023Episodic Return Decomposition by Difference of Implicitly Assigned Sub-Trajectory Rewardcited by 2
  24. 2024Reinforcement Learning via Auxiliary Task Distillationcited by 2
  25. 2024Hierarchical Meta-Reinforcement Learning via Automated Macro-Action Discoverycited by 2
  26. 2025Learning "Partner-Aware" Collaborators in Multi-Party Collaborationcited by 2
  27. 2026BiCAA: Bidirectional Credit Assignment for Search-Augmented Agentcited by 2
  28. 2024Why Online Reinforcement Learning is Causalcited by 1
  29. 2024Sequence Compression Speeds Up Credit Assignment in Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
  30. 2024Agent-Temporal Credit Assignment for Optimal Policy Preservation in Sparse Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
  31. 2025CoCA: Step-level Reward for Free in RL-based T2I Diffusion Model Fine-tuningcited by 1
  32. 2025Causality in the human niche: lessons for machine learningcited by 1
  33. 2025MACIE: Multi-Agent Causal Intelligence Explainer for Collective Behavior Understandingcited by 1
  34. 2026Action Shapley: A Training Data Selection Metric for World Model in Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
  35. 2026When to Forget: A Memory Governance Primitivecited by 1
  36. 2026From Noisy Traces to Root Causes: Structural Trajectory Analysis and Causal Extraction for Agent Optimizationcited by 1
  37. 2026IAPO: Influence-Aware Policy Optimization for Credit Assignment in Multi-Turn Service Agentscited by 1
  38. 2026Hindsight Memory-PRM: Supervising Memory Management with Auditable Hindsight Creditcited by 1

50 most cited of 74 All 74 (JSON)