Influence-function diagnostics identify steps 3–8 of the Big-L peg-solitaire board as the most consequential region, with the lowest-β participants showing substantially larger absolute influence values there¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · design r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? On the Big-L board, the lowest-β group exhibits substantially larger absolute influence values in steps 3–8 than both the highest-β group and remaining participants, marking a structural bottleneck. → Wenqian Xu 2026

Evidence¶

Wenqian Xu 2026¶

Wenqian Xu, Feng Ji. (2026). Reinforcement Learning Measurement Model. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09305 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2605.09305

q2 · i? · design · r2

Influence-function analysis of simulated trajectories on the Big-L board (Figures 5 and 6). The article links the pattern to a collapse in the number of remaining solution paths around steps 3–8, so errors there "removestructuralresourcesrequiredforlaterconnectivity".

"Forsteps3–8,thelowest-βgroupexhibitssubstantiallylargerabsoluteinfluencevaluesthanboththehighest- βgroup and the remaining participants."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The RLMM recovers ability parameters on peg-solitaire boards with up to more than 23 million states, where tabular MDP-MM estimation is impractical — related
• In peg-solitaire simulations with known true abilities, the RLMM attains lower RMSE of log βj than the MDP-MM on all four original boards — related
• RLMM runtime stays within approximately 15–20 seconds across the four peg-solitaire boards while MDP-MM runtime grows with task complexity, reaching a 19.1× speedup on the diamond board — related
• In AQUALAB, estimated β is ordered across episode completion status (means 1.181, 1.506, 2.343; Kruskal–Wallis p = 8.62×10−29) and higher-β quintiles complete more content more efficiently
• In AQUALAB gameplay logs, the estimated RLMM person parameter is positively associated with cumulative trajectory reward (Pearson 0.5842, Spearman 0.5760)
• Hint Factory MDP-generated hints gave correct next-step hints over 80% of the time and a pilot showed students solved more logic proofs with hints — related