Shuffle the Decks: Children Are Sensitive to Incidental Nonrandom Structure in a Sequential-Choice Task

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Developmental Psychology
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Children's ability to perceive complex environmental structures is crucial for adaptive decision-making.
• Previous research suggests age is typically associated with improved performance on decision-making tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between age and performance on the Children's Gambling Task (CGT).
• To identify potential biases influencing decision-making in children and their association with age and task performance.

Main Methods:

• Tested 304 children aged 4-13 years on the Children's Gambling Task (CGT).
• Analyzed the association between age, performance, and a specific decision-making bias (deplete-replenish bias).

Main Results:

• A negative association was found between age and CGT performance.
• This paradoxical effect was specific to children exhibiting a deplete-replenish bias.
• The bias stems from sensitivity to task structure and would be adaptive in non-deterministic environments.

Conclusions:

• Changes in children's decision-making with age are partly due to heightened sensitivity to environmental structure.
• A deplete-replenish bias can impair performance in deterministic tasks, despite its adaptive potential in other contexts.