It is largely expected that people can learn from past experiences and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future. However, there are aspects inherent in experiential learning which may affect the extent to which people can extract and use information from experiential feedback to make advantageous decisions. Three aspects inherent in experiential learning were identified: (1) it is reliant on memory, (2) information is gathered exclusively through outcome feedback, and (3) outcome feedback is inherently dynamic. The current investigation explored how each of these aspects may help shape experiential decision making, and examined how the presence of competing types of information might hinder the ability of experiential information to guide people towards advantageous choices. A card-selection paradigm was used to examine learning about monetary outcomes from repeatedly sampling from two decks with different expected values (EVs, i.e., average payoffs). Effects on working memory were assessed by varying the number of outcomes within each deck and varying whether both decks had all-gain outcomes or one deck had some zero outcomes. Reliance on outcome feedback was manipulated by adding misleading (but technically correct) descriptive information which favored the less advantageous deck. To assess the impact of dynamic information, the dynamics of experience were contrasted with misleading dynamic descriptions. The primary dependent variable was the number of higher EV deck selections measured during the first and last 25 choices. The results of the investigation revealed little strain on working memory, but found a surprise zero effect in which identification of the more advantageous option was noticeably disrupted when the better option contained possible zero outcomes. Participants seemed drawn to options that were less advantageous but had only gain outcomes. Misleading descriptions provided at the outset only disrupted advantageous choice when zero outcomes were involved, but outcome feedback was found to help overcome the initial bias toward the lower EV all-gain deck. However, when no description was available, the zero effect grew more intense with experience. Finally, when misleading dynamic descriptions were presented, disruptions in experiential learning were seen throughout. The implications of these results contribute to our understanding of which conditions are likely to support versus disrupt our ability to use experiential feedback to guide us towards advantageous choices.

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Adolescence is a unique developmental period where substantial brain development and social independence can result in higher risk-taking behavior. Researchers have spent the last several decades trying to understand at a neurological level why adolescents are more likely to take risks that often have extreme consequences (e.g., car accidents, drug use, etc.). The resulting research has found mixed and often inconsistent findings and scientists have posited that this could be due to differences in experimental tasks; where some are more description-based (e.g., Wheel of Fortune tasks) and others are more experience-based (e.g., Stop Signal tasks). Research examining the way adults learn about risk reveals that individuals make different decisions when information is learned via description or experience – a phenomenon known as the Description-Experience Gap. The present work aims to bridge research in adolescent development and judgement and decision-making to identify the neural processes associated with the Description-Experience gap in adolescents and adults. Across two studies, I examined the neural mechanisms associated with learning via description and experience in adolescents and adults and their subsequent impact on risky choice to find that adolescents and adults utilize information from description and experience differently. In adults, similar neural mechanisms involved with memory and deliberation are implicated at different points of the decision process. Adolescents displayed distinct neural activation associated with risk-taking and reward sensitivity when learning via experience. Both studies demonstrate the significance of memory and learning-relevant processes in risk-taking across development. / Psychology

Adolescents are known to take more risks than adults, which can be harmful to their health and well-being. Interventions aimed at reducing risk taking typically provide descriptions of the negative outcomes that may result from a risky choice, and have shown little evidence of actually preventing risk taking. This lack of efficacy may be due in part to differences between how adolescents process information about risk when it is described (e.g., in a classroom intervention) versus when it is experienced (e.g., when a teenager experiences the outcome of a risky choice). In the present work, I first summarize the Description-Experience (D-E) gap literature from the adult Judgment and Decision Making field, which makes the crucial distinction between choice behavior when information is acquired to descriptions relative to experience. Next, I relate work on the D-E gap to laboratory research on risk taking between adolescents and adults. A review of the developmental literature demonstrates that experience-based experimental paradigms are more likely to show heightened risk taking in adolescents relative to adults (Rosenbaum et al., Resubmitted), and is consistent with an affect-based explanation of risk taking. In Experiment 1, I present a novel within-subjects D-E gap paradigm, which I test in a sample of young adults, and show individual differences in the degree of bias when participants make choices from description verses experience. Subsequently, in Experiment 2, I test cohorts of adolescents and adults in the within-subjects D-E gap paradigm. In this developmental experiment, I additionally measure eye tracking to better understand decision processing and changes in heart rate variability by task (description, experience) and age group. Results show that adolescents and adults take similar risks in DFD and DFE, but unlike adults, adolescents’ choices in DFD do not adhere to prospect theory predictions. Further, in DFD, adolescents spend more time looking at probabilities than values, while adults show the opposite pattern. Conversely, in DFE, adolescents make choices consistent with underweighting rare outcomes, similar to adults. There is some evidence that adolescents show enhanced rare-outcome underweighting relative to adults, even after controlling for sampling bias. Concurrently, adolescents show a higher change in LFHRV from baseline relative to adults during DFE, but not in DFD. In sum, results are consistent with the idea that adolescents have trouble utilizing descriptive information, but are able to adapt choices readily based on information acquired through experience. Teens, relative to adults, may show enhanced biases toward risk taking when a rare outcome is unfavorable, a process that may be supported by higher affective arousal. / Psychology