Dubois, Magda;
Bowler, Aislinn;
Moses-Payne, Madeleine E;
Habicht, Johanna;
Moran, Rani;
Steinbeis, Nikolaus;
Hauser, Tobias U;
(2022)
Exploration heuristics decrease during youth.
Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience
10.3758/s13415-022-01009-9.
(In press).
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Abstract
Deciding between exploring new avenues and exploiting known choices is central to learning, and this exploration-exploitation trade-off changes during development. Exploration is not a unitary concept, and humans deploy multiple distinct mechanisms, but little is known about their specific emergence during development. Using a previously validated task in adults, changes in exploration mechanisms were investigated between childhood (8-9 y/o, N = 26; 16 females), early (12-13 y/o, N = 38; 21 females), and late adolescence (16-17 y/o, N = 33; 19 females) in ethnically and socially diverse schools from disadvantaged areas. We find an increased usage of a computationally light exploration heuristic in younger groups, effectively accommodating their limited neurocognitive resources. Moreover, this heuristic was associated with self-reported, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in this population-based sample. This study enriches our mechanistic understanding about how exploration strategies mature during development.
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