Adults generally tend to make more effective decisions compared to adolescents, and this improvement leads to more advanced and refined decision-making behaviors, according to a recent study.
Recent research published on November 14 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, conducted by Vanessa Scholz, Lorenz Deserno from the University of Würzburg in Germany, and their team, highlights that adults generally outperform adolescents in decision-making and that this progression fosters an increase in complex and refined choices.
As individuals transition from adolescence to adulthood, their learning and decision-making abilities undergo significant changes. During adolescence, individuals experience developmental shifts in their decision-making behaviors, including goal-oriented actions and the impact of motivation on their choices. It’s common for adolescents to display high levels of decision noise, which means they often opt for less favorable options. However, it’s still unclear whether these phenomena–the evolution of advanced decision-making behaviors and higher decision noise–are independent of each other or interconnected. It’s possible that the maturation of specific decision-making processes is influenced by age-related changes in decision noise.
To examine this theory, Scholz, Deserno, and their colleagues analyzed data from 93 participants aged between 12 and 42 years. The participants engaged in three tasks related to reinforcement learning: one focusing on how motivation affects choices, another designed to evaluate adaptive decision-making in response to environmental changes, and a third measuring goal-oriented behavior.
The findings demonstrated a strong correlation in noise levels across the reinforcement learning tasks. Importantly, these noise levels appeared to influence the age-related enhancements in sophisticated decision-making and overall performance. This suggests that general decision noise plays a crucial role in the development of highly specialized functions or strategies.
A possible explanation for these mediation effects could be that adolescents have limited cognitive resources due to the ongoing development of brain regions associated with cognitive control. With fewer cognitive resources available, adolescents may resort to simpler decision-making strategies, making them more vulnerable to emotional, motivational, and social factors.
In summary, this study sheds light on the computational mechanisms behind the developmental shifts in decision-making. The authors suggest that future research could explore the neural foundations, as well as the developmental and clinical significance of decision noise, particularly in relation to neurodevelopmental disorders.
The authors conclude, “Teenagers often make less optimal, or ‘noisy,’ decisions. While these noisy decisions tend to diminish with age, their reduction is also connected to the improvement in complex decision-making abilities, such as planning and adaptability.”
