Foraging across the life span: is there a reduction in exploration with aging?

doi:10.3389/FNINS.2013.00053

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Foraging across the life span: is there a reduction in exploration with aging?

Journal Article•DOI•

Foraging across the life span: is there a reduction in exploration with aging?

Rui Mata¹, Andreas Wilke², Uwe Czienskowski¹•Institutions (2)

Max Planck Society¹, Clarkson University²

17 Apr 2013-Frontiers in Neuroscience (Frontiers)-Vol. 7, pp 53-53

TL;DR: Overall, the evidence suggests that foraging behavior may undergo significant changes across the life span across internal and external search, and finds evidence of a trend toward reduced exploration with increased age.

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Abstract: Does foraging change across the life span, and in particular, with aging? We report data from two foraging tasks used to investigate age differences in search in external environments as well as internal search in memory. Overall, the evidence suggests that foraging behavior may undergo significant changes across the life span across internal and external search. In particular, we find evidence of a trend towards reduced exploration with increased age. We discuss these findings in light of theories that postulate a link between aging and reductions in novelty seeking and exploratory behavior.

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Dissertation•

Effect of Urbanization on Neophobia in Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)

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Catherine Jarjour

22 Jul 2019

TL;DR: This paper aims to provide a chronology of the main events and activities that led to the creation of the encyclopaedia Britannica in the years leading up to the publication of this book.

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Abstract: ......................................................................................................................................... ii Résumé .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Statement of Contributions ............................................................................................................ v Table of

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3 citations

Cites background from "Foraging across the life span: is t..."

...novelty further could be unnecessarily risky given the drop in the future value of information with age (Mata et al. 2013; Sherratt and Morand-Ferron 2018)....
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...A possible reason that young appear more risk-prone could be that they are still gaining information about their environment, and so explore more than adults (Bergman and Kitchen 2009; Mata et al. 2013)....
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...…exploration are thought to decrease over time, as ageing individuals will have already learned as much as they need to survive, and exploring novelty further could be unnecessarily risky given the drop in the future value of information with age (Mata et al. 2013; Sherratt and Morand-Ferron 2018)....
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...Young individuals may appear more risk-prone and less neophobic than adults as they are still gaining information about their environment and must spend more time exploring novelties than older individuals (Greenberg and Mettke-Hofmann 2001; Mata et al. 2013)....
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Modeling exploration/exploitation behavior and the effect of individual differences

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Ke Sang

01 Mar 2017

2 citations

Cites background from "Foraging across the life span: is t..."

...For example, Mata, Wilke, and Czienskowski (2013) found that there was a reduction in exploration with increased age in adults. von Helversen and 6 Mata (2012) found that depressed participants searched longer and performed better than healthy participants in a sequential search task....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Resource scarcity compromises explore-exploit decision-making

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Shou-An A. Chang¹, Julian Jara-Ettinger¹, Arielle R. Baskin-Sommers¹•Institutions (1)

Yale University¹

01 Jan 2022-Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the impact of concentrated disadvantage on decision-making about obtaining resources, and the potential connection between concentrated disadvantage and engagement in social norm violation, and found that individuals who experience higher levels of concentrated advantage in the real world made fewer resource-maximizing decisions in resource-rich and resource-depleted environments.

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2 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

The Adaptive Problem of Exploiting Resources: Human Foraging Behavior in Patchy Environments

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Andreas Wilke

19 Mar 2020

1 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Target value and prevalence influence visual foraging in younger and older age

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Iris Wiegand¹, Iris Wiegand², Jeremy M. Wolfe²•Institutions (2)

Radboud University Nijmegen¹, Brigham and Women's Hospital²

29 May 2021-Vision Research

TL;DR: This article investigated individual and age differences in a hybrid foraging task, in which the prevalence and value of multiple target types was varied and found that younger and older observers were more efficient overall in younger than older observers, suggesting that the underlying cognitive mechanisms are preserved in older age.

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1 citations

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References

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Book•

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

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Richard S. Sutton¹, Andrew G. Barto•Institutions (1)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology¹

01 Jan 1988

TL;DR: This book provides a clear and simple account of the key ideas and algorithms of reinforcement learning, which ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications.

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Abstract: Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives when interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the key ideas and algorithms of reinforcement learning. Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications. The only necessary mathematical background is familiarity with elementary concepts of probability. The book is divided into three parts. Part I defines the reinforcement learning problem in terms of Markov decision processes. Part II provides basic solution methods: dynamic programming, Monte Carlo methods, and temporal-difference learning. Part III presents a unified view of the solution methods and incorporates artificial neural networks, eligibility traces, and planning; the two final chapters present case studies and consider the future of reinforcement learning.

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37,989 citations

"Foraging across the life span: is t..." refers background in this paper

...Exploration is an adaptive first step because it allows one to acquire information about the environment that will later lead to successful exploitation (Sutton and Barto, 1998)....
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Book Chapter•DOI•

Regression Models and Life-Tables

[...]

David Cox¹•Institutions (1)

Imperial College London¹

01 Jan 1972-Journal of the royal statistical society series b-methodological

TL;DR: The analysis of censored failure times is considered in this paper, where the hazard function is taken to be a function of the explanatory variables and unknown regression coefficients multiplied by an arbitrary and unknown function of time.

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Abstract: The analysis of censored failure times is considered. It is assumed that on each individual arc available values of one or more explanatory variables. The hazard function (age-specific failure rate) is taken to be a function of the explanatory variables and unknown regression coefficients multiplied by an arbitrary and unknown function of time. A conditional likelihood is obtained, leading to inferences about the unknown regression coefficients. Some generalizations are outlined.

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28,264 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

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Timothy A. Salthouse¹•Institutions (1)

Georgia Institute of Technology¹

01 Jul 1996-Psychological Review

TL;DR: A theory is proposed that increased age in adulthood is associated with a decrease in the speed with which many processing operations can be executed and that this reduction in speed leads to impairments in cognitive functioning because of what are termed the limited time mechanism and the simultaneity mechanism.

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Abstract: A theory is proposed to account for some of the age-related differences reported in measures of Type A or fluid cognition. The central hypothesis in the theory is that increased age in adulthood is associated with a decrease in the speed with which many processing operations can be executed and that this reduction in speed leads to impairments in cognitive functioning because of what are termed the limited time mechanism and the simultaneity mechanism. That is, cognitive performance is degraded when processing is slow because relevant operations cannot be successfully executed (limited time) and because the products of early processing may no longer be available when later processing is complete (simultaneity). Several types of evidence, such as the discovery of considerable shared age-related variance across various measures of speed and large attenuation of the age-related influences on cognitive measures after statistical control of measures of speed, are consistent with this theory.

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5,094 citations

"Foraging across the life span: is t..." refers background in this paper

...…times have been suggested to capture reliable individual differences in search (Dougherty and Harbison, 2007), any reaction-time based measure poses interpretational problems regarding exploratory tendencies with aging due to overall age differences in motor and cognitive speed (Salthouse, 1996)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.

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Brent W. Roberts¹, Kate E. Walton¹, Wolfgang Viechtbauer²•Institutions (2)

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign¹, Maastricht University²

01 Jan 2006-Psychological Bulletin

TL;DR: The present study used meta-analytic techniques to determine the patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course and showed that people increase in measures of social dominance, conscientiousness, and emotional stability in young adulthood and decrease in both of these domains in old age.

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Abstract: The present study used meta-analytic techniques (number of samples = 92) to determine the patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course. Results showed that people increase in measures of social dominance (a facet of extraversion), conscientiousness, and emotional stability, especially in young adulthood (age 20 to 40). In contrast, people increase on measures of social vitality (a 2nd facet of extraversion) and openness in adolescence but then decrease in both of these domains in old age. Agreeableness changed only in old age. Of the 6 trait categories, 4 demonstrated significant change in middle and old age. Gender and attrition had minimal effects on change, whereas longer studies and studies based on younger cohorts showed greater change.

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2,791 citations

"Foraging across the life span: is t..." refers background in this paper

...Research on humans suggests that openness and novelty seeking declines over the life span as measured by self-report (Roberts et al., 2006; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011)....
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...But what evidence is there of age differences in novelty seeking and exploratory behavior? Research on humans suggests that openness and novelty seeking declines over the life span as measured by self-report (Roberts et al., 2006; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011)....
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Posted Content•

A Domain-Specific Risk-Attitude Scale: Measuring Risk Perceptions and Risk Behaviors

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Elke U. Weber¹, Ann Renée Blais, Nancy E. Betz²•Institutions (2)

Columbia University¹, Ohio State University²

01 Jan 2002-Social Science Research Network

TL;DR: This article presented a psychometric scale that assesses risk taking in various content domains: financial decisions, health/safety, recreational, ethical, and social decisions, and found that respondents' degree of risk taking was highly domain-specific, i.e. not consistently risk-averse or consistently riskseeking across all content domains.

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Abstract: We present a psychometric scale that assesses risk taking in ﬁve content domains: ﬁnancial decisions (separately for investing versus gambling), health/safety, recreational, ethical, and social decisions. Respondents rate the likelihood that they would engage in domain-specific risky activities (Part I). An optional Part II assesses respondents’ perceptions of the magnitude of the risks and expected benefits of the activities judged in Part I. The scale’s construct validity and consistency is evaluated for a sample of American undergraduate students. As expected, respondents’ degree of risk taking was highly domain-specific, i.e. not consistently risk-averse or consistently risk-seeking across all content domains. Women appeared to be more risk-averse in all domains except social risk. A regression of risk taking (likelihood of engaging in the risky activity) on expected benefits and perceived risks suggests that gender and content domain differences in apparent risk taking are associated with differences in the perception of the activities’ benefits and risk, rather than with differences in attitude towards perceived risk.

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2,340 citations

"Foraging across the life span: is t..." refers background in this paper

...…= 99) completed a number of questionnaire measures that we reasoned could be related to exploratory behavior, including risk-taking in the investment and gambling domain (Weber et al., 2002), maximization tendencies (Schwartz et al., 2002), and future time perspective (Lang and Carstensen, 2002)....
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