The paper tackles sample efficiency in image-based reinforcement learning by combining novelty and surprise signals to prioritize experiences. It proposes Novelty and Surprise Prioritized Experience Replay (NSPER) and an extended version, NSPER+R, which also uses these signals as intrinsic rewards. Experiments on DeepMind Control Suite tasks demonstrate that both methods accelerate training and improve convergence compared to existing techniques.
arXiv:2607. 29419v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In reinforcement learning, exploration with sparse and delayed rewards presents a significant challenge due to the limited feedback available for guiding the learning process.
By Bumgeun Park, Donghwan Lee
The paper proposes Instant Episode Repetition (IER), a method that immediately repeats action sequences from high‑reward episodes during training to boost sample efficiency. Unlike passive replay techniques, IER actively shapes data collection by re‑executing successful behaviors for a set number of subsequent episodes. Experiments on MuJoCo, the DeepMind Control Suite, and a robotic manipulation task show that IER improves learning performance over standard SAC, TD3, and self‑imitation baselines.
By Hoda Yamani, Yuning Xing, Koen van Rijnsoever, Bruce A. MacDonald, Henry Williams
arXiv:2607. 17760v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) provides a powerful framework for learning from demonstrations.
By Ziyi Liu, Grace Zhang
arXiv:2606. 00151v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In reinforcement learning (RL), agents benefit from exploration only because they repeatedly encounter similar states: trying different actions can improve performance or reduce uncertainty; without such retries, a greedy policy is optimal.
By Soichiro Nishimori, Paavo Parmas, Sotetsu Koyamada, Tadashi Kozuno, Toshinori Kitamura, Shin Ishii, Yutaka Matsuo
arXiv:2609.36473v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Temporal abstraction via options can improve exploration in large environments. However, existing option discovery algorithms find subgoals that target...
By Akhil Bagaria, Anita De Mello Koch, George Konidaris