Expecting the unexpected: a review of learning under uncertainty across development

Abstract

Many of our decisions take place under uncertainty. To successfully navigate the environment, individuals need to estimate the degree of uncertainty and adapt their behaviors accordingly by learning from experiences. However, uncertainty is a broad construct and distinct types of uncertainty may differentially influence our learning. We provide a semi-systematic review to illustrate cognitive and neurobiological processes involved in learning under two types of uncertainty: learning in environments with stochastic outcomes, and with volatile outcomes. We specifically reviewed studies (N = 26 studies) that included an adolescent population, because adolescence is a period in life characterized by heightened exploration and learning, as well as heightened uncertainty due to experiencing many new, often social, environments. Until now, reviews have not comprehensively compared learning under distinct types of uncertainties in this age range. Our main findings show that although the overall developmental patterns were mixed, most studies indicate that learning from stochastic outcomes, as indicated by increased accuracy in performance, improved with age. We also found that adolescents tended to have an advantage compared with adults and children when learning from volatile outcomes. We discuss potential mechanisms explaining these age-related differences and conclude by outlining future research directions.

Observational reinforcement learning in children and young adults

“…Children learned slower than adults 10 , 36 – 40 and their choice behavior was more stochastic and less value-driven 41 , 42 . This decrease in stochasticity across age is one of the most consistent findings observed in reinforcement learning 7 , 8 . Potentially, this may relate to an increase in maintaining sustained attention, or improved working memory, accelerated by a developmental improvement in cognitive control.…”

“…Previous research involving reinforcement learning models has yielded mixed results regarding age-related differences in positive and negative learning rates 8 . Recent reviews, however, indicate that choice specificity tends to consistently increase with advancing age 7 , 8 .…”

“…Several studies have examined how learning from own outcomes changes with age 7 , 8 . Many studies observed that adults typically outperform children during instrumental learning.…”

How Adolescents Learn to Build Social Bonds: A Developmental Computational Account of Social Explore-Exploit Decision-Making

“…Age-related differences in learning rates from adolescence to adulthood would suggest adolescents integrate recent experiences more than adults (Decker et al, 2015). However, there is mixed evidence regarding the direction of the learning rate's association with explorative dynamics across age (Topel et al, 2023). Therefore, further research is needed to determine whether adolescents have meaningfully higher learning rates, or whether an alternative construct better captures (directed) exploration dynamics.…”