A Bayesian Approach for Quantifying Data Scarcity when Modeling Human Behavior via Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

Computational models that formalize complex human behaviors enable study and understanding of such behaviors. However, collecting behavior data required to estimate the parameters of such models is often tedious and resource intensive. Thus, estimating dataset size as part of data collection planning (also known as Sample Size Determination) is important to reduce the time and effort of behavior data collection while maintaining an accurate estimate of model parameters. In this article, we present a sample size determination method based on Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) for a specific Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) model of human behavior, in two cases: (1) pre-hoc experiment design—conducted in the planning stage before any data is collected, to guide the estimation of how many samples to collect; and (2) post-hoc dataset analysis—performed after data is collected, to decide if the existing dataset has sufficient samples and whether more data is needed. We validate our approach in experiments with a realistic model of behaviors of people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and illustrate how to pick a reasonable sample size target. Our work enables model designers to perform a deeper, principled investigation of the effects of dataset size on IRL model parameters.