Simple reward-based learning suits adolescents best

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/p-srl061516.php

Public Release: 20-Jun-2016
Simple reward-based learning suits adolescents best
PLOS

Adolescents focus on rewards and are less able to learn to avoid punishment or consider the consequences of alternative actions, finds a new UCL-led study.The study, published in PLOS Computational Biology, compared how adolescents and adults learn to make choices based on the available information.

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Adolescents and adults were equally good at learning to choose symbols associated with reward, but adolescents were less good at avoiding symbols associated with punishment. Adults also performed significantly better when they were told what would have happened if they had chosen the other symbol after each choice, whereas adolescents did not appear to take this information into account.

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Adolescents and adults were equally good at learning to choose symbols associated with reward, but adolescents were less good at avoiding symbols associated with punishment. Adults also performed significantly better when they were told what would have happened if they had chosen the other symbol after each choice, whereas adolescents did not appear to take this information into account.