Trace-Mediated Peak Bias:

Trace-Mediated Peak Bias: Bridging Temporal Credit Assignment and Cognitive Heuristics in Deep Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2606.04735v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Temporal credit assignment is central to both biological and artificial intelligence, yet its interaction with non-linear function approximation is poorly understood. We identify a systematic failure mode in deep reinforcement learning (RL) termed Trace-Mediated Peak Bias (TMPB). At intermediate eligibility trace depths, agents irrationally prefer trajectories with high-magnitude reward ``peaks'' over alternatives with higher cumulative returns.