Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

Developing the ability to plan is an important part of children’s transition into independent adults. In real-life, planning is often complex as there are too many potential future scenarios to exhaustively consider. We aimed to provide a mechanistic account of the development of complex planning from ages 8 to 25 years. We used computational modeling to delineate three component processes of complex planning: 1. heuristic evaluation of prospective states based on relevant features, 2. forward simulation of potential future actions and their outcomes (i.e., planning depth), and 3. sustained attention to relevant features. We found that these three component processes show distinct age-related changes in their contribution to complex planning ability. This provides strong evidence for the continued development of model-based decision strategies into adulthood, and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of its underling cognitive mechanisms.