Most research on adaptive decision-making takes a strategyfirst
approach, proposing a method of solving a problem and
then examining whether it can be implemented in the brain
and in what environments it succeeds. We present a method for
studying strategy development based on computational evolution
that takes the opposite approach, allowing strategies to
develop in response to the decision-making environment via
Darwinian evolution. We apply this approach to a dynamic
decision-making problem where artificial agents make decisions
about the source of incoming information. In doing so,
we show that the complexity of the brains and strategies of
evolved agents are a function of the environment in which they
develop. More difficult environments lead to larger brains and
more information use, resulting in strategies resembling a sequential
sampling approach. Less difficult environments drive
evolution toward smaller brains and less information use, resulting
in simpler heuristic-like strategies.