We study different kinds of learning and how the different ways we learn influence memory, decision making, cognitive control, and other goal-directed behavior in children, adolescents, and adults. We are particularly interested in adolescence as an important developmental period when children gain increased independence to learn and make decisions. We aim to characterize adolescents’ unique capacity to flexibly learn from their experiences and use this information to navigate new situations. We investigate how the developing brain promotes flexible learning from the range of new experiences and challenges that emerge throughout development.
Our work focuses on three central questions:
How does the developing brain support learning and decision-making in adolescence?
Multiple systems in the brain support distinct kinds of learning. We are interested in how these different brain systems interact across development to help children and adolescents learn from their experiences.
How do different kinds of learning influence memory?
Across development, children and adolescents face many new experiences. While learning from these experiences, they must remember information that will be most useful for their future success. We want to understand the factors, such as rewards and social feedback, that shape what children and adolescents tend to remember during learning.
How are memories used to guide decision making?
As children grow up and transition into adolescence, they are increasingly challenged to make more self-guided decisions. We are interested in how children and adolescents use memories from different learning experiences to help them make decisions in new situations.
Tools
We use several tools to answer our questions. We create learning, memory, and decision-making games to investigate these behaviors. We also use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to help see what is happening in the brain during these games. We use computational modeling to analyze what aspects of learning influences memory and decision-making. These tools guide our inferences about cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie the behaviors we see in the lab.
Research Assistant Projects
The Relationship of Emotional Working Memory with Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety: Maddy Hammell
This project builds upon previous literature that establishes working memory and emotional processing deficits related to depression and anxiety, to further analyze if emotional face working memory and mental health symptoms are correlated across and adolescent population. We expect that those who score higher on metrics of depression and anxiety will perform increasingly poorly on this emotional face working memory task, as the severity of these symptoms increases.
The Role of Intergenerational Trauma and its Effects on Depression and Suicidality: Monica Karori
I am an undergraduate student in the College of Science Research Program, collaborating with Dr. Juliet Davidow and Dr. Analia Albuja to study patterns of intergenerational trauma in young Black adolescent girls. My research focuses on how primary caregivers’ behaviors and cultural expectations, such as the “strong Black woman” schema, contribute to depression and suicidality. I am also examining how race shapes the environments they grow up in and whether these environments correlate with mental health outcomes. Through this study, I hope to better the intersection of familial dynamics, cultural perceptions, and gendered experiences in shaping the mental health of Black youth.
Adolescent Brain Morphology and Transfer of Learning: Matt Love
As a Summit award recipient, my project focused on how adolescent brain development impacts the transfer of learning. Using structural MRI data, sensory preconditioning paradigms, and tools like FreeSurfer, my research examines how changes in the hippocampus, vmPFC, and striatum relate to value generalization, a key process in decision-making. This study aims to replicate findings on adolescent cortical development and further uncover insights into the morphological correlations of the adolescent brain with value generalization.
Social Prediction and Reversal Learning in Adolescence: Kiara Roque
I am an undergraduate research assistant working in Dr. Juliet Davidow’s Learning and Brain Development Lab. I am currently working on a project that will investigate how adolescents engage in reversal learning when a social component is introduced. I hypothesize that adolescents’ sensitivity to social rewards will enhance their motivation, leading to improved reversal learning skills. I cannot wait to test this hypothesis this semester!