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Incorporating Cognitive Biases into Reinforcement Learning for Financial Decision-Making

Liu He

arXiv 13 Jan 2026 · Machine Learning

arXiv:2601.08247 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Financial markets are influenced by human behavior that deviates from rationality due to cognitive biases. Traditional reinforcement learning (RL) models for financial decision-making assume rational agents, potentially overlooking the impact of psychological factors. This study integrates cognitive biases into RL frameworks for financial trading, hypothesizing that such models can exhibit human-like trading behavior and achieve better risk-adjusted returns than standard RL agents. We introduce biases, such as overconfidence and loss aversion, into reward structures and decision-making processes and evaluate their performance in simulated and real-world trading environments. Despite its inconclusive or negative results, this study provides insights into the challenges of incorporating human-like biases into RL, offering valuable lessons for developing robust financial AI systems.

Citation extraction

15
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26
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Rasa Kanapickienė, Deimantė Vasiliauskaitė, G. Keliuotytė-Staniulėni… (2024) A comprehensive review of behavioral biases in financial decision-making: from classical finance to behavioral finance perspecti…0.84333100%
2Alara Uyvar Kara (2025) The role of cognitive biases in financial decision-making0.84333100%
3Tidor-Vlad Pricope (2021) Deep reinforcement learning in quantitative algorithmic trading: A review0.84333100%
4Safiye Turgay and Abdülkadir Aydın (2025) Improving decision making under uncertainty with data analytics: Bayesian networks, reinforcement learning, and risk perception…0.84333100%
5Maochun Xu, Zixun Lan, Zheng Tao, Jiawei Du, and Zongao Ye (2023) Deep reinforcement learning for quantitative trading0.84333100%
6Bingqing Wang (2023) The impact of anchoring bias on financial decision-making: Exploring cognitive biases in decision-making processes0.64422100%
7Mohd Afjal (2024) Evolving trends, limitations, and ethical considerations in ai-driven conversational interfaces: assessing chatgpt's impact on h…0.40511100%
8Sounak Banerjee, Daphne Cornelisse, Deepak E. Gopinath, Emily Sumner… (2025) Estimating cognitive biases with attention-aware inverse planning0.40511100%
9Patrick Cheridito, Jean-Loup Dupret, and Zhexin Wu (2025) Abides-marl: A multi-agent reinforcement learning environment for endogenous price formation and execution in a limit order book0.40511100%
10Sara Garg (2025) Artificial intelligence in strategic business decision-making: Challenges, biases, and ethical considerations in microfinance in…0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 15 scored citations.