Adolescents flexibly adapt action selection based on controllability inferences.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Environmental controllability shapes behavior, influencing instrumental and Pavlovian learning systems.
• Developmental studies show mixed findings on Pavlovian learning during adolescence.
• A model of controllability-dependent arbitration may explain these divergent findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate controllability-dependent arbitration between learning systems.
• Test if adolescents' action selection is sensitive to environmental controllability.
• Explain divergent findings in developmental learning literature.

Main Methods:

• 90 participants (aged 8-27) completed a probabilistic-learning task.
• Task included controllable and uncontrollable environmental conditions.
• Reinforcement-learning model estimated Pavlovian influence on instrumental learning.

Main Results:

• Adolescents demonstrated greater flexibility in calibrating Pavlovian bias.
• This calibration was relative to the degree of environmental controllability.
• Adolescents showed heightened sensitivity to environmental reward statistics.

Conclusions:

• Controllability adaptively modulates Pavlovian and instrumental learning dominance.
• Adolescence is a critical period for developing sensitivity to environmental reward statistics.
• Findings suggest heightened behavioral organization sensitivity during adolescence.