Foraging across the life span: is there a reduction in exploration with aging?

Mata, Rui; Wilke, Andreas; Czienskowski, Uwe

doi:10.3389/fnins.2013.00053

Cited by 68 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…This effect paralleled the reduction in directed exploration observed when computing directly the frequency of choosing 4 different decks over 4 consecutive trials (DE index). It is also highly consistent with recent papers showing that directed exploration reduces across lifespan (Mata et al, 2013;Schulz and Wu) . Since directed exploration requires the retention of the last few choices made in the task, the phenomenon may be related to the decline of working memory performances sometimes observed in aging patients (Gazzaley et al, 2005) .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Indeed, it was recently shown that directed exploration diminishes across lifespan (Mata et al, 2013;Schulz and Wu) , so that the exploration bonus of older participants should be smaller than that of young participants. Third, we provide an open-source, user-friendly Matlab toolbox which has been developed to obtain the current results and which shall enable researchers who are not experts in computational models to re-analyze IGT data using both our new model and previous ones (see Appendix 1 and https://github.com/romainligneul/igt-toolbox ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Directed exploration in the Iowa Gambling Task: model-free and model-based analyses in a large dataset of young and old healthy participants

Ligneul

2018

Preprint

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The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most common paradigms used to assess decision-making and executive functioning in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Several reinforcement-learning (RL) models were recently proposed to refine the qualitative and quantitative inferences that can be made about these processes based on IGT data. Yet, these models do not account for the complex exploratory patterns which characterize participants' behavior in the task.Using a dataset of more than 500 subjects, we demonstrate the existence of such patterns and we describe a new computational architecture (Explore-Exploit) disentangling exploitation, random exploration and directed exploration in this large population of participants. The EE architecture provided a better fit to the choice data on multiple metrics. Parameter recovery and simulation analyses confirmed the superiority of the EE scheme over alternative schemes. Furthermore, using the EE model, we were able to replicate the reduction in directed exploration across lifespan, as previously reported in other paradigms. Finally, we provide a user-friendly toolbox enabling researchers to easily fit computational models on the IGT data, hence promoting reanalysis of the numerous datasets acquired in various populations of patients.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directed exploration in the Iowa Gambling Task: model-free and model-based analyses in a large dataset of young and old healthy participants

Ligneul

2018

Preprint

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“…Humans may reduce exploration with increased age (Mata, Wilke, & Czienskowski, 2013), and show reduced exploration in girls compared to boys (Slovic, 1966). Humans show individual differences and a change in the discounting of future rewards across their lifespan (Green, Myerson, & Ostaszewski, 1999) There are sex differences in the amounts of exploration and exploitation for many animals; however, the sex doing the most exploring or exploiting is not consistent across species.…”

Section: Factormentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the exploration–exploitation tradeoff: A synthesis of human and animal literatures.

Mehlhorn¹,

Newell²,

Todd³

et al. 2015

Decision

334

318

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Many decisions in the lives of animals and humans require a fine balance between the exploration of different options and the exploitation of their rewards. Do you buy the advertised car, or do you testdrive different models? Do you continue feeding from the current patch of flowers, or do you fly off to another one? Do you marry your current partner, or try your luck with someone else? The balance required in these situations is commonly referred to as the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. It features prominently in a wide range of research traditions, including learning, foraging, and decisionmaking literatures. Here, we integrate findings from these and other often-isolated literatures in order to gain a better understanding of the possible tradeoffs between exploration and exploitation, and we propose new theoretical insights that might guide future research. Specifically, we explore how potential tradeoffs depend on (1) the conceptualization of exploration and exploitation; (2) the influencing environmental, social, and individual factors; (3) the scale at which exploration and exploitation are considered; (4) the relationship and types of transitions between the two behaviors; and (5) the goals of the decision maker. We conclude that exploration and exploitation are best conceptualized as points on a continuum, and that the extent to which an agent's behavior can be interpreted as exploratory or exploitative depends upon the level of abstraction at which it is considered.

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“…There is growing interest in ecological perspectives for understanding cognitive aging (Mata & von Helverson, 2015; Mata, Wilke, & Czienskowski, 2009, 2013; Stine-Morrow, 2015). For example, Chin, Payne, Fu, Morrow, and Stine-Morrow (2015) used a word search puzzle task to examine age differences in information foraging.…”

Section: Self-regulated Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult age differences in information foraging in an interactive reading environment.

Liu

Chin

Payne

et al. 2016

Psychology and Aging

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When learning about a single topic in natural reading environments, readers are confronted with multiple sources varying in the type and amount of information. In this situation, readers are free to adaptively respond to the constraints of the environment (e.g., through selection of resources and time allocation for study), but there may be costs of exploring and switching between sources (e.g., disruption of attention, opportunity costs for study). From an ecological perspective, such properties of the environment are expected to influence learning strategies. In the current study, we used a novel reading paradigm to investigate age differences in the effects of information richness (i.e., sentence elaboration) and costs of switching between texts (i.e., time delay) on selection of sources and study time allocation. Consistent with the ecological view, participants progressed from less informative to more informative texts. Also, increased switch cost led to a tendency to allocate more effort to easier materials and to greater persistence in reading, which in turn, led to better memory in both immediate and delayed recall. Older adults showed larger effects of switch cost, such that the age difference in delayed recall was eliminated in the high switch cost condition. Based on an ecological paradigm of reading that affords choice and self-regulation, our study provided evidence for preservation with age in the ability to adapt to changing learning environments so as to improve performance.

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Foraging across the life span: is there a reduction in exploration with aging?

Cited by 68 publications

References 57 publications

Directed exploration in the Iowa Gambling Task: model-free and model-based analyses in a large dataset of young and old healthy participants

Directed exploration in the Iowa Gambling Task: model-free and model-based analyses in a large dataset of young and old healthy participants

Unpacking the exploration–exploitation tradeoff: A synthesis of human and animal literatures.

Adult age differences in information foraging in an interactive reading environment.

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