# Graceful task adaptation with a bi-hemispheric RL agent

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.11456 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11456/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Asynchronous Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.01783/) (2016)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10897/) (2019)
- [RL2: Fast Reinforcement Learning via Slow Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.02779/) (2016)
- [Learning to reinforcement learn](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.05763/) (2016)
- [Towards Continual Reinforcement Learning: A Review and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.13490/) (2020)
- [A Survey of Zero-shot Generalisation in Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09794/) (2021)
- [Recurrent Model-Free RL Can Be a Strong Baseline for Many POMDPs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05038/) (2021)
- [Continual World: A Robotic Benchmark For Continual Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10919/) (2021)
- [Meta-learning of Sequential Strategies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.03030/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In humans, responsibility for performing a task gradually shifts from the right hemisphere to the left. The Novelty-Routine Hypothesis (NRH) states that the right and left hemispheres are used to perform novel and routine tasks respectively, enabling us to learn a diverse range of novel tasks while performing the task capably. Drawing on the NRH, we develop a reinforcement learning agent with specialised hemispheres that can exploit generalist knowledge from the right-hemisphere to avoid poor initial performance on novel tasks. In addition, we find that this design has minimal impact on its ability to learn novel tasks. We conclude by identifying improvements to our agent and exploring potential expansion to the continual learning setting.