Developmental differences in social information use under uncertainty: A neurocomputational approach

Adolescence is a period of social re-orientation, with studies suggesting that adolescents may be more sensitive to peer influence than other age groups. A clearer understanding of the dynamics and development of peer influence during adolescence is therefore particularly pertinent. In this study, we compared the cognitive and neural processes underlying social learning in adolescents (12–18 years) and adults (22–45 years), focusing on how uncertainty influences social information use. Participants completed a perceptual decision-making task in which they could revise their initial estimate after viewing a peer's estimate. Uncertainty was manipulated by varying the amount of information provided before their decision and by manipulating the peer's reported confidence. Using a combination of model-free analyses and a Bayesian computational model, we found that while adolescents and adults exhibit similar core decision-making mechanisms, computational modeling revealed that adolescents were less sensitive to variations in their own certainty and peer confidence, reducing the effect on social information use. Functional MRI revealed that adolescents showed a reduced neural response to peer confidence variations compared to adults, but exhibited a stronger initial neural response to variations in their own certainty. However, this heightened response was not present anymore when personal and peer information was to be combined. We discuss how these observations might be explained by ongoing neural development during adolescence, leading to reduced metacognitive abilities which hinder the effective integration of precision signals. Together, these findings deepen our understanding of how adolescents process social information under uncertainty and how this process evolves with age.