Modernizing Conceptions of Valuation and Cognitive-Control Deployment in Adolescent Risk Taking

Abstract

Heightened risk taking in adolescence has long been attributed to valuation systems overwhelming the deployment of cognitive control. However, this explanation of why adolescents engage in risk taking is insufficient given increasing evidence that risk-taking behavior can be strategic and involve elevated cognitive control. We argue that applying the expected-value-of-control computational model to adolescent risk taking can clarify under what conditions control is elevated or diminished during risky decision-making. Through this lens, we review research examining when adolescent risk taking might be due to—rather than a failure of—effective cognitive control and suggest compelling ways to test such hypotheses. This effort can resolve when risk taking arises from an immaturity of the control system itself, as opposed to arising from differences in what adolescents value relative to adults. It can also identify promising avenues for channeling cognitive control toward adaptive outcomes in adolescence.

Modeling changes in probabilistic reinforcement learning during adolescence

“…However, the decay of these memory processes might also decrease with age [ 12 ], which could be captured here by the decrease in the forgetting parameter. Thus, younger participants might show a weaker effect of delay not because their memory system was forgetting less (it was forgetting more), but because they used their working memory system less in this task [ 12 , 57 ], and instead relied more on slower but more robust learning systems.…”

Are adolescents more optimal decision‐makers in novel environments? Examining the benefits of heightened exploration in a patch foraging paradigm

“…At the onset of puberty, there is increased activation of the dopaminergic reward network (van Leijenhorst et al, 2010), which promotes novelty‐seeking behaviour (Costa et al, 2014). Further, adolescents are motivated to employ cognitive control resources to explore unknown scenarios that can yield information about the probability structure of their environment (Do et al, 2019). Consistent with this account, adolescents in the present study were motivated to seek out novel patches, which required the deployment of cognitive resources to engage in effortful exploration rather than choosing the comparatively less taxing option of exploiting the known option (Daw et al, 2006; Do et al, 2019; Otto et al, 2014).…”

“…Further, adolescents are motivated to employ cognitive control resources to explore unknown scenarios that can yield information about the probability structure of their environment (Do et al, 2019). Consistent with this account, adolescents in the present study were motivated to seek out novel patches, which required the deployment of cognitive resources to engage in effortful exploration rather than choosing the comparatively less taxing option of exploiting the known option (Daw et al, 2006; Do et al, 2019; Otto et al, 2014). According to the Lifespan Wisdom Model, this decision‐making strategy is employed across adolescence to aid adolescents to learn about their surrounding environment (Romer et al, 2017).…”

“…Exploration is an effortful process requiring cognitive control (Daw et al, 2006; Otto et al, 2014). Recently, it has been suggested that adolescents are more motivated than other age groups to employ cognitive control to explore novel scenarios in order to acquire information about their surroundings (Do et al, 2019). Consistent with this, compared to adults, adolescents explore uncertain outcomes in conditions of ambiguity where probabilistic information is unknown, but not in conditions of risk where this information is explicit (van den Bos & Hertwig, 2017; Tymula et al, 2012).…”

“…Unlike other paradigms, patch foraging performance has been computationally defined across humans and other animal species such that performance can be compared to an objective behavioural optimum. While research has demonstrated that adolescents prefer to exploit the option that yields an immediate reward in an explore/exploit paradigm (Somerville et al, 2017), an alternative body of work has suggested that adolescents are motivated to explore novel scenarios more than adults (Do et al, 2019; Romer et al, 2017; Steinberg, 2008). As such, we predicted that (a) there will be a difference in foraging behaviour between adolescents and adults, measured by the point at which they leave patches to explore new ones.…”