‘Emotional’ computers improve performance

Computers that show something like “regret” can improve their performance, Italian scientists say, and so help model human behavior for research:

Davide Marchiori of the University of Trento and Massimo Warglien of Ca’ Foscari University in Venice built mathematical models based on biological neural networks. These use simulated networks of “brain cells” to arrive at decisions and learn by trial and error.

Introducing an approximation of regret allowed the models to predict human behavior more precisely than conventional economic learning theories, the researchers said. Their findings appear in the Feb. 22 issue of the research journal Science.

Will we someday remove the scare quotes from “regret”?