Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

People of all ages value having agency, the opportunity to exert control over their environments. However, there are situations where the costs of exerting control exceed its benefits. It is not well understood how individuals develop the ability to evaluate the costs and benefits of agency. Here, we used a novel probabilistic reinforcement task to examine developmental changes in sensitivity to the utility of agency. Participants encountered choices between two bandits in three different contexts in which the utility of control varied. Participants could either accept a variable offer amount and have the computer choose between the bandits for them or reject the offer and choose between the bandits themselves. We found that participants across age tended to overvalue control. However, participants also demonstrated sensitivity to the utility of agency, such that they preferred to make their own choices when doing so had higher instrumental value. Sensitivity to the utility of agency increased with age, such that older participants were more likely to adaptively give up their agency when agency had little value.