Crossref DOIMemberCiteFactoropen accessissn
SJIF Impact Factor 8.659 | ISSN: 2582-3930
IJSREM Logo

International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management

(Gateway to Global Scholars - An International, Scholarly, Multi-Disciplinary, Open Access Journal)

Peer-Reviewed Journal Designed to Meet UGC's Quality Parameters

HomeCurrent IssuePast IssuesPay OnlineConferencesEditorial BoardAbout UsContact Us
IJSREM

Loading article...

Follow Us

  • Google Scholar
  • ResearchGate
  • Academia.edu
  • Mendeley
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Journal Policies

  • Peer Review Policy
  • Publication Ethics
  • Copyright Infringement
  • Refund & Cancellation Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Journal Identifiers & Licenses

  • ISSN Verified: 2582-3930ISSN Verified: 2582-3930
  • Crossref DOI: 10.55041Crossref DOI: 10.55041
  • SJIF Ranking: 08.659SJIF Ranking: 08.659
  • Licensed under CC BY 4.0Licensed under CC BY 4.0
  • ISO Certification: 9001:2015ISO Certification: 9001:2015
  • Indexed & Cited In: Google ScholarIndexed & Cited In: Google Scholar

Contact Us

International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management (IJSREM)

#62/1, New No 7, 1st Cross, 2nd Main, Ganganagar, R T Nagar, Bangalore North, Bangalore, Karnataka, India – 560032
[email protected]+91 93911 67991
logos
logos
Working Hours

Mon – Sat: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sunday: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

+91 93911 67991

© 2026 IJSREM – International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management. This is an open-access journal. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

DisclaimerPrivacy PolicyTerms and Conditions
ArticlePeer ReviewedOpen AccessPlagiarism Passed
Paper ID:IJSREM67301

Causal Explainable Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Question Selection in Human–AI Decision Systems

Stream/Area:

-

Subject:

-

Paper ID:

IJSREM67301

Volume:

10 |

9 |

Sep 2026

Pages:

1-20

Publication Frequency:

Monthly (12 issues per year)

DOI
Digital Object Identifier
10.55041/IJSREM67301

License:International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management follows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing free use and distribution with proper attribution.

Share this article:

Authors

Susheel Reddy Kandakatla

Susheel Reddy Kandakatla

Independent

University of Mary Hardin Baylor

Download Author Certificate
VG

Vigneshwaran Ganesan

Independent

Bharathidasan University

Download Co-Author Certificate
RBS

Reyaz Basha Shaik

Independent

JNTU

Download Co-Author Certificate
VN

Vijayendra Nannapaneni

Independent

University of Illinois Springfield

Download Co-Author Certificate
NV

Nikhil Vemulapally

Independent

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Download Co-Author Certificate

Author Services & Downloads

Full ArticlesAcceptance Certificate

Abstract

Adaptive question selection is an emerging capability in human–AI decision systems where an agent must determine what information to acquire before making a decision. Existing approaches commonly use reinforcement learning (RL), information gain, or post-hoc explainability methods such as SHAP and LIME to identify important variables. However, these methods primarily capture predictive associations and do not establish whether the information requested by an AI was causally necessary for its decision. This paper proposes Causal Explainable Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Question Selection (CERL-AQS), a framework integrating Bayesian belief-state estimation, structural causal models, causal reinforcement learning, and counterfactual reasoning. The proposed approach evaluates the causal value of candidate questions by estimating how obtaining or withholding specific information changes the probability of downstream decisions. A multi-objective RL policy jointly optimizes decision accuracy, causal information value, questioning cost, user burden, and explanation validity. The framework generates counterfactual explanations describing how the final decision would change if the requested information had not been obtained. The proposed methodology is designed to be evaluated against conventional RL, information-gain, SHAP-based, and counterfactual baselines using decision accuracy, question efficiency, causal fidelity, counterfactual validity, robustness, and human explanation comprehension. The study aims to advance adaptive AI from associational feature attribution toward causally grounded, decision-relevant explanations.

KEYWORDS

Causal Explainable AI Causal Reinforcement Learning Adaptive Question Selection Counterfactual Explanations and Human–AI Decision Systems

Cite This Article

Susheel Reddy Kandakatla, Vigneshwaran Ganesan, Reyaz Basha Shaik, Vijayendra Nannapaneni, Nikhil Vemulapally, "Causal Explainable Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Question Selection in Human–AI Decision Systems," International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management, vol. 10, no. 9, pp. 1-20, Sep 2026. https://doi.org/10.55041/IJSREM67301

Full Article/Conclusion

This study proposes Causal Explainable Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Question Selection (CERL-AQS) to address the limitations of association-based explanation in adaptive AI. By integrating causal question value and counterfactual reasoning into RL, the framework seeks to explain not only why a question was asked, but also what would have happened without its information. Future research will focus on real-world human–AI experiments, automated causal-graph discovery, uncertainty-aware causal explanations, fairness-aware question selection, multimodal information acquisition, and scalable causal RL algorithms. Further work will also investigate online learning and deployment under distribution shift. These directions can advance CERL-AQS toward reliable, transparent, and practically deployable human-centered AI decision systems.

References

Amitai, Y., Septon, Y., & Amir, O. (2024). Explaining reinforcement learning agents through counterfactual action outcomes. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 38(9), 10003–10011. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v38i9.28863 Bekkemoen, Y. (2024). Explainable reinforcement learning (XRL): A systematic literature review and taxonomy. Machine Learning, 113, 355–441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10994-023-06479-7 Chen, H., Covert, I. C., Lundberg, S. M., & Lee, S.-I. (2023). Algorithms to estimate Shapley value feature attributions. Nature Machine Intelligence, 5, 590–601. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00657-x Chou, Y.-L., Moreira, C., Bruza, P., Ouyang, C., & Jorge, J. (2022). Counterfactuals and causability in explainable artificial intelligence: Theory, algorithms, and applications. Information Fusion, 81, 59–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2021.11.003 da Costa Cunha, C., Liu, W., French, T., & Mian, A. (2025). Unifying causal reinforcement learning: Survey, taxonomy, algorithms and applications [Preprint]. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18135 Ganesan, V. et.al.,(2026a). Adaptive questioning as decision intelligence: A progressive disclosure framework for uncertainty-driven human–AI interaction. International Journal of Current Science, 16(1), 170–185. https://doi.org/10.56975/ijcsp.v16i1.303795  Jiang, J., Leofante, F., Rago, A., & Toni, F. (2024). Robust counterfactual explanations in machine learning: A survey. Proceedings of the Thirty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 8086–8094. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2024/894 Lundberg, S. M., & Lee, S.-I. (2017). A unified approach to interpreting model predictions. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (Vol. 30, pp. 4765–4774). Madumal, P., Miller, T., Sonenberg, L., & Vetere, F. (2020). Explainable reinforcement learning through a causal lens. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 34(03), 2493–2500. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v34i03.5631 Ganesan, V., et.al.,(2026b). Adaptive decision intelligence 2.0: Explainable, reinforcement learning-driven progressive questioning for autonomous human–AI decision systems. Journal of Emerging Trends and Novel Research, 4(3), JETNR2603144. https://doi.org/10.56975/jetnr.v4i3.233128 Pearl, J. (2009). Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Editorial & Review Transparency

Publication Date

9/16/2026

Peer Review Type

Double-Blind Peer Review

Review Rounds: 2

Documents

Review Report (Confidential)
Copyright Form (Office)

Article Metrics & Impact

Article Views

1

Total views since publication

PDF Downloads

6

Total downloads since publication

Geographic Reach

5

Indexing, Archiving & Preservation

Google Scholar
Academia
ResearchGate
Crossref
SSRN
Semantic Scholar
Thomson Reuters
WorldCat
Mendeley
OpenAlex
EBSCO
Zenodo

Digital Preservation: This article is permanently archived on Zenodo and complies with all data preservation standards across major indexing platforms.

Ethics, Compliance & Transparency

Plagiarism Screening

This manuscript has been checked for plagiarism using TurnitinPlagiarismChecker software.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this research work.

Funding Information

No funding information available for this research.

Similar & Recommended Articles

Similar Articles by Topic

Related research in the same subject area

Loading similar articles...