Accelerating Reinforcement Learning via Error-Related Human Brain Signals

In this work, we investigate how implicit neural feedback can accelerate reinforcement learning in complex robotic manipulation settings. While prior electroencephalogram (EEG)-guided reinforcement learning studies have primarily focused on navigation or low-dimensional locomotion tasks, we aim to understand whether such neural evaluative signals can improve policy learning in high-dimensional manipulation tasks involving obstacles and precise end-effector control. We integrate error-related potentials decoded from offline-trained E EG classifiers into reward shaping and systematically evaluate the impact of human-feedback weighting. Experiments on a 7-DoF manipulator in an obstacle-rich reaching environment show that neural feedback accelerates reinforcement learning and, depending on the human-feedback weighting, can yield task success rates that at times exceed those of sparse-reward baselines. Moreover, when applying the best-performing feedback weighting across all subjects, we observe consistent acceleration of reinforcement learning relative to the sparse-reward setting. Furthermore, leave-one-subject-out evaluations confirm that the proposed framework remains robust despite the intrinsic inter-individual variability in EEG decodability. Our findings demonstrate that EEG-based reinforcement learning can scale beyond locomotion tasks and provide a viable pathway for human-aligned manipulation skill acquisition.

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