Uncertainty about others’ trustworthiness increases during adolescence and guides social information sampling

Adolescence is a key life phase for developing well-adjusted social behaviour. An essential component of well-adjusted social behaviour is the ability to update our beliefs about the trustworthiness of others based on gathered information. Here, we examined how adolescents (n = 157, 10–24 years) sequentially sampled information about the trustworthiness of peers and how they used this information to update their beliefs about others’ trustworthiness. Our Bayesian computational modelling approach revealed an adolescence-emergent increase in uncertainty of prior beliefs about others’ trustworthiness. As a consequence, early to mid-adolescents (ages 10–16) gradually relied less on their prior beliefs and more on the gathered evidence when deciding to sample more information, and when deciding to trust. We propose that these age-related differences could be adaptive to the rapidly changing social environment of early and mid-adolescents. Together, these findings contribute to the understanding of adolescent social development by revealing adolescent-emergent flexibility in prior beliefs about others that drives adolescents’ information sampling and trust decisions.NWO464-15-176Pathways through Adolescenc

Risks and rewards in adolescent decision-making.

Adolescent decision-making has been characterized as risky, and a heightened reward sensitivity may be one of the aspects contributing to riskier choice-behavior. Previous studies have targeted reward-sensitivity in adolescence and the neurobiological mechanisms of reward processing in the adolescent brain. In recent examples, researchers aim to disentangle the contributions of risk- and reward-sensitivity to adolescent risk-taking. Here, we discuss recent findings of adolescent's risk preferences and the associated neural mechanisms. We highlight potential frameworks that target individual differences in risk preferences in an effort to understand adolescent risk-taking, and with an ultimate goal of leveraging undesirable levels of risk taking.Pathways through Adolescenc

Age differences in intertemporal choice among children, adolescents, and adults

When choosing between sooner–smaller and later–larger rewards (i.e., intertemporal choices), adults typically prefer later–larger rewards more often than children. Intertemporal choice preferences have been implicated in various impulsivity-related psychopathologies, making it important to understand the underlying mechanisms not only in terms of how reward magnitude and delay affect choice but also in terms of how these mechanisms develop across age. We administered an intertemporal choice paradigm to 60 children (8–11 years), 79 adolescents (14–16 years), and 60 young adults (18–23 years). The paradigm systematically varied amounts and delays of the available rewards, allowing us to identify mechanisms underlying age-related differences in patience. Compared with young adults, both children and adolescents made fewer later–larger choices. In terms of underlying mechanisms, variation in delays, absolute reward magnitudes, and relative amount differences affected choice in each age group, indicating that children showed sensitivity to the same choice-relevant factors as young adults. Sensitivity to both absolute reward magnitude and relative amount differences showed a further monotonic age-related increase, whereas no change in delay sensitivity occurred. Lastly, adolescents and young adults weakly displayed a present bias (i.e., overvaluing immediate vs. future rewards; nonsignificant and trend, respectively), whereas children showed a nonsignificant but opposite pattern, possibly indicating that specifically dealing with future rewards changed with age. These findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the development of patience. By decomposing overt choices, our results suggest that the age-related increase in patience may be driven specifically by stronger sensitivity to amount differences with age.</p

Realtime crowdsourcing with payment of idle workers in the Retainer Model

The realtime applications of crowdsourcing are a very promising topic, due to its high potentialities, for example in marketing, security or telecommunication applications. Realtime crowdsourcing ensures that solutions to a given problem are obtained in the shortest possible time using collective intelligence. In order to be ready to carry out any requested task in realtime, crowdworkers must be available at any time. Here we focus on the payment of crowdworkers and on the trade-off between the expected waiting time for a task to be carried out and the number of workers in the pool that should not become too large otherwise the total cost increases. In particular we consider the, so called, Retainer Model in which crowdworkers are paid in order to be ready to carry out any requested task in realtime. The Retainer Model considers an expected total cost which takes into account both the amount paid to a crowdworker to be in idle-state and the loss when the task is not completed in realtime. After checking the existence of a minimum cost we characterize the optimal number of crowdworkers, and suggest a practical and quick way to obtain it. Moreover, we analyse the sensitivity of the optimal number of crowdworkers with respect to different task intensities

Effects of adolescent socio-cognitive development on the cortisol response to social evaluation

Pathways through Adolescenc

Is it worth it? How your brain decides to make an effort

Everything you do requires you to exert effort. For instance, basic things like walking or cycling require physical effort and have to do with using your body. Another type of effort is cognitive effort, which has to do with thinking and using your brain. For instance, think about trying to master a Rubik’s cube. Would you want to put in your effort here? The pleasure of finding a solution might outweigh the effort of thinking hard. Or you may decide that finding a solution is not worth your effort. Why and when would you decide to think hard? In this article, we will explain how you decide to exert cognitive effort and what is happening in your brain while you make this decision.Pathways through Adolescenc