A recent study highlights how adolescents’ brains, still undergoing significant development, contribute to their often less optimal decision-making compared to adults. Understanding these changes can provide insights into cognitive development and potential strategies for minimizing risky behaviors.
Adults generally make better decisions than teenagers, and this behavioral improvement over time is linked to the development of more sophisticated decision-making skills, according to new research from the University of Würzburg in Germany.
A study published today in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, led by postdoctoral research fellow Vanessa Scholz and Lorenz Deserno, an associate professor for neuroscience in developmental psychiatry, delves into the developmental changes that occur from adolescence into adulthood.
Assessing behaviors such as goal-directed actions and the influence of motivation on choices, the researchers found that adolescents consistently show higher levels of “decision noise” — or the tendency to make suboptimal decisions — compared to adults.
The researchers analyzed data from 93 participants aged between 12 and 42, engaging them in three reinforcement learning tasks designed to measure different aspects of decision-making. These tasks evaluated motivational influences, adaptive decision-making in response to changing environments, and goal-directed behaviors.
Their findings revealed that the noise levels — a term referring to inconsistencies and suboptimal choices in decision-making — were strongly correlated across all tasks. More importantly, a decline in noise levels was linked with age-related improvements in more complex choice behaviors and overall performance.
“Teenagers make less optimal, so-called ‘noisy’ decisions. While these noisy decisions decrease when growing older, this decrease is also linked to the development of improved complex decision-making skills, such as planning and flexibility,” the authors noted.
One possible explanation for the observed mediation effect is the limited availability of cognitive resources in adolescents, attributed to ongoing brain development. These cognitive resources are essential for complex decision-making processes.
As teenagers’ brains mature, they require fewer resources to make more sophisticated decisions and are less influenced by emotional, motivational and social factors.
This study sheds new light on the computational processes driving changes in decision-making from adolescence into adulthood. The insights gained could be substantial for understanding developmental and clinical aspects of neurodevelopmental disorders, offering pathways for potential interventions.