Goal Inference as Inverse Planning

Abstract

Infants and adults are adept at inferring agents goals from in- complete or ambiguous sequences of behavior. We propose a framework for goal inference based on inverse planning, in which observers invert a probabilistic generative model of goal-dependent plans to infer agents goals. The inverse plan- ning framework encompasses many specific models and rep- resentations; we present several specific models and test them in two behavioral experiments on online and retrospective goal inference.