Lecture by Catherine Hartley: Developmental tuning of action selection

Reinforcement learning models provide a framework for understanding how individuals can evaluate which actions are beneficial and which are best avoided.  To date, these models have primarily been leveraged to understand reward learning in adults. In this talk, I will present studies characterizing developmental changes from childhood to adulthood in the cognitive representations and computations engaged to evaluate and select actions. I will discuss how these changes may optimize behavior for an individual’s developmental stage.