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Searching for rewards like a child means less generalization and more directed exploration

Eric Schulz, Charley M. Wu, Azzurra Ruggeri, Björn Meder
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/327593
Eric Schulz
1Harvard University
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  • For correspondence: ericschulz@fas.harvard.edu
Charley M. Wu
2Max Planck Institute for Human Development
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Azzurra Ruggeri
3Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Technical University Munich
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Björn Meder
4Max Planck Institute for Human Development and University of Erfurt
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Abstract

How do children and adults differ in their search for rewards? We consider three different hypotheses that attribute developmental differences to either children’s increased random sampling, more directed exploration towards uncertain options, or narrower generalization. Using a search task in which noisy rewards are spatially correlated on a grid, we compare 55 younger children (age 7-8), 55 older children (age 9-11), and 50 adults (age 19-55) in their ability to successfully generalize about unobserved outcomes and balance the exploration-exploitation dilemma. Our results show that children explore more eagerly than adults, but obtain lower rewards. Building a predictive model of search to disentangle the unique contributions of the three hypotheses of developmental differences, we find robust and recoverable parameter estimates indicating that children generalize less and rely on directed exploration more than adults. We do not, however, find reliable differences in terms of random sampling.

Footnotes

  • Final psych science version.

  • ↵2 Note that interpreting estimates of inferior computational models can be problematic and should only be done with caution.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 18, 2019.
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Searching for rewards like a child means less generalization and more directed exploration
Eric Schulz, Charley M. Wu, Azzurra Ruggeri, Björn Meder
bioRxiv 327593; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/327593
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Searching for rewards like a child means less generalization and more directed exploration
Eric Schulz, Charley M. Wu, Azzurra Ruggeri, Björn Meder
bioRxiv 327593; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/327593

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  • Animal Behavior and Cognition
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