Experiential reward learning outweighs instruction prior to adulthood
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Throughout our lives, we face the important task of distinguishing rewarding actions from those that are best avoided. Importantly, there are multiple means by which we acquire this information. Through trial and error, we use experiential feedback to evaluate our actions. We also learn which actions are advantageous through explicit instruction from others. Here, we examined whether the influence of these two forms of learning on choice changes across development by placing instruction and experience in competition in a probabilistic-learning task. Whereas inaccurate instruction markedly biased adults' estimations of a stimulus's value, children and adolescents were better able to objectively estimate stimulus values through experience. Instructional control of learning is thought to recruit prefrontal-striatal brain circuitry, which continues to mature into adulthood. Our behavioral data suggest that this protracted neurocognitive maturation may cause the motivated actions of children and adolescents to be less influenced by explicit instruction than are those of adults. This absence of a confirmation bias in children and adolescents represents a paradoxical developmental advantage of youth over adults in the unbiased evaluation of actions through positive and negative experience.
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Children (age 6-12) and adolescents (age 13-17) excel at learning rules through experience, whereas adults were biased to learn more from explicit instruction.
“A recent behavioral study showed that children (age 6–12) and adolescents (age 13–17) excel at learning rules through experience, whereas adults were biased to learn more from explicit instruction”
From Does puberty mark a transition in sensitive periods for plasticity in the associative neocortex? (2017) · cites this paper as Decker et al., 2015
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Does puberty mark a transition in sensitive periods for plasticity in the associative neocortex?
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- Authors
- Decker, J. H., Lourenco, F. S., Doll, B. B., & Hartley, C. A.
- Affiliations
- Weill Cornell Medicine (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- New York University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hartley, Catherine A.
- Venue
- Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
- Published
- 2015-01-13
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 310-320
- ISSN
- 1530-7026 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-135X
- PMC
- PMC4437867
- OpenAlex
- W2062013810
- Cited by
- 96
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 3.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (P50MH079513)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM007739)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- reward learning, experiential learning, explicit instruction, developmental differences, children, adolescents, adults, probabilistic learning, confirmation bias, choice behavior
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Child, Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Learning, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Probability Learning, Reward, Feedback, Psychological, Young Adult, Psychology, Developmental
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