Differences in Learning Across the Lifespan Emerge via Resource-Rational Computations.
Learning accurate beliefs about the world is computationally demanding but critical for adaptive behavior across the lifespan. Here, we build on an established framework formalizing learning as predictive inference and examine the possibility that age differences in learning emerge from efficient co...
| Publicado en: | Psychological Review Vol. 132; no. 3; pp. 556 - 581 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
American Psychological Association
Apr2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=184341953&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 184341953 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0033295X PYV jtl: Psychological Review issn: 0033295X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2025 vid: 132 iid: 3 pid: 34 pub: American Psychological Association artinfo: ui: 184341953 10.1037/rev0000526 ppf: 556 ppct: 25 formats: tig: atl: Differences in Learning Across the Lifespan Emerge via Resource-Rational Computations. aug: au: Bruckner, Rasmus Nassar, Matthew R. Li, Shu-Chen Eppinger, Ben affil: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg Department of Neuroscience, Brown University Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University Centre for Tactile Internet With Human-in-the-Loop, Technische Universität Dresden Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden Department of Psychology, Concordia University Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald su: Learning Age Cognitive load Inference (Logic) Cognitive psychology Anchoring effect Cognitive bias Sampling (Process) sug: subj: Learning Age Cognitive load Inference (Logic) Cognitive psychology Anchoring effect Cognitive bias Sampling (Process) keyword: aging decision making development learning uncertainty aging decision making development learning uncertainty ab: Learning accurate beliefs about the world is computationally demanding but critical for adaptive behavior across the lifespan. Here, we build on an established framework formalizing learning as predictive inference and examine the possibility that age differences in learning emerge from efficient computations that consider available cognitive resources differing across the lifespan. In our resource-rational model, beliefs are updated through a sampling process that stops after reaching a criterion level of accuracy. The sampling process navigates a trade-off between belief accuracy and computational cost, with more samples favoring belief accuracy and fewer samples minimizing costs. When cognitive resources are limited or costly, a maximization of the accuracy–cost ratio requires a more frugal sampling policy, which leads to systematically biased beliefs. Data from two lifespan studies (N = 129 and N = 90) and one study in younger adults (N = 94) show that children and older adults display biases characteristic of a more frugal sampling policy. This is reflected in (a) more frequent perseveration when participants are required to update from previous beliefs and (b) a stronger anchoring bias when updating beliefs from an externally generated value. These results are qualitatively consistent with simulated predictions of our resource-rational model, corroborating the assumption that the identified biases originate from sampling. Our model and results provide a unifying perspective on perseverative and anchoring biases, show that they can jointly emerge from efficient belief-updating computations, and suggest that resource-rational adjustments of sampling computations can explain age-related changes in adaptive learning. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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