Characterizing Ongoing Development in Adolescent Cooperation through Cognitive Computational Models
Open Access DepositedCooperation plays a fundamental role in social interaction (Melis & Semmann, 2010). Adolescence is an important life phase for developing well-adjusted social behavior where adolescents’ cooperative skills are further honed through increased engagement in peer relationships. (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Lafontana & Antonius, 2009; Nelson et al., 2016). their social learning and decision-making strategies are less optimal compared to those of adults while adolescents show an exceptionally high social motivation (Fuhrmann et al., 2015; Hofmans & van den Bos, 2022; Rosenblau et al., 2018). During adolescence, autistic adolescents face greater challenges than their non-autistic peers due to pronounced social deficits (Bolling et al., 2015; Dawson et al., 1998; C. R. G. Jones et al., 2018; Oerlemans et al., 2018; Rosenblau et al., 2020). It is crucial to investigate how social decision-making processes in autistic adolescents may diverge from typical developmental trajectories as they transition into adolescence.Across three papers, this dissertation employed computational models to investigate the cooperation strategy in adolescents with and without autism. Chapter 2 reviews the limitation of traditional psychological research in charactering individual differences, leading to a limited understanding of the heterogeneity observed in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism. Recent advances in cognitive computational neuroscience, together with open science framework and a big data approach, introduce finer-grained dynamic methods to better capture behavioral dynamics at an individual level and in larger samples. Studies focused on how computational models provide a better characterization of autistic traits in both the general and autistic population are reviewed in Chapter 2. We argued that computational models can achieve a more systematic and nuanced understanding of social decision making and of autism. They can be used to better characterize developmental trajectories in adolescents with and without an autism diagnosis and to examine the heterogeneity in both autistic traits and autism symptomatology. With this notion, Chapter 3 employed computational models to investigate whether early adolescence is a significant developmental period for strategic social decisions. Typical and autistic preadolescents sampled information about the trustworthiness of their partners before making their cooperation decision. Computational modeling revealed that while both groups used the same strategy to sample information about their partners that varied in trustworthiness, autistic adolescents believed the trustees to be less trustworthy comparing with non-autistic adolescents. It makes an important contribution to revealing differences between typically developing children and those with an autism diagnosis and provided a more nuanced view of developmental and disorder dimensions. The study in Chapter 4 expanded the study of cooperation to iterative social exchange between two interaction partners. We investigated how adolescents sustain cooperation with computer agents versus human partners. We argued that the partner’s adaptivity and social context would significantly influence cooperation towards the cooperation partner. Computational models based on economic strategies revealed differences in how adolescents sustained cooperation when thinking that their partner was a human versus knowing that they were a computer algorithm. Adolescents reinitiated cooperation even more often when thinking that they played with a human partner. It shows that adolescents systematically adapt their cooperation behavior based on their partner’s adaptivity and task context, which could provide insights into addressing social adaptation and mental health challenges among adolescents. Overall, this dissertation integrates cognitive computational models and behavioral experiments to provide a more comprehensive understanding of social decision-making in adolescence. It highlights the importance of considering individual differences and developmental stages in characterizing cooperation and autism.
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.