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Poster C127 in Poster Session C - Friday, August 9, 2024, 11:15 am – 1:15 pm, Johnson Ice Rink
Characterizing the contributions of reward and emotion information on learning through adolescence
Camille V. Phaneuf1 (), Elizabeth A. Phelps1, Leah H. Somerville1; 1Harvard University
To behave adaptively, individuals of all ages must heed value information in their environments. This study characterizes how incidental and integral value cues shape learning from childhood to adulthood (N=114, 8-22 years). Within a probabilistic reinforcement learning task, emotional expressions conveyed incidental information while monetary rewards conveyed integral information. In some conditions, emotion and reward contributed to value in a congruent manner: following either cue promoted learning. In other conditions, emotion and reward contributed to value in an incongruent manner: following the emotion cue impeded reward learning. Model-free and computational modeling analyses revealed that, indeed, although participants of all ages adopted condition-wise learning strategies, younger participants’ learning was most disrupted by emotion-reward incongruency. Meanwhile, older participants leveraged emotion-reward congruency to guide their choices to the greatest degree. Together, this work sheds light on age-related changes in the use of incidental and integral information for goal-directed actions.
Keywords: adolescence development emotion reinforcement learning