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posted by martyb on Monday August 28 2017, @01:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the Hold-My-Beer dept.

Why DO teens do THAT? Raging hormones? Prefrontal cortex fully developed? Thrill Seeking? New research from The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has released a report explaining Why Teens Take Risks: It's Not a Deficit in Brain Development:

The authors propose an alternative model that emphasizes the role that risk taking and the experience gained by it play in adolescent development. This model explains much of the apparent increase in risk taking by adolescents as "an adaptive need to gain the experience required to assume adult roles and behaviors." That experience eventually changes the way people think about risk, making it more "gist-like" or thematic and making them more risk averse.

"Recent meta-analyses suggest that the way individuals think about risks and rewards changes as they mature, and current accounts of brain development must take these newer ideas into account to explain adolescent risk taking," said co-author Valerie Reyna, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroscience Institute at Cornell University.

Romer[1] added, "The reason teens are doing all of this exploring and novelty seeking is to build experience so that they can do a better job in making the difficult and risky decisions in later life – decisions like 'Should I take this job?' or 'Should I marry this person?' There's no doubt that this period of development is a challenge for parents, but that's doesn't mean that the adolescent brain is somehow deficient or lacking in control."

[1] Daniel Romer, Ph.D

Daniel Romer, Valerie F. Reyna, Theodore D. Satterthwaite. Beyond stereotypes of adolescent risk taking: Placing the adolescent brain in developmental context. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017; 27: 19 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.007 (Javascript required).

Alternate Link: Science.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @06:42PM (3 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Monday August 28 2017, @06:42PM (#560396)

    I believe most birds have at least a fourth set of cone pigments allowing them to see well into the ultraviolet -I've heard pigeons are actually brilliantly colored to other pigeons. Octopi have only one set of broad-spectrum receptors, but appear to use chromatic aberration to achieve color vision by another method (though I'm unclear as to how their total spectral range compares), plus they can see polarization, and their eyes are mobile enough to allow either near-360 or binocular vision. Mantis shrimp have 16 different color receptors, and can actually tune the frequency sensitivity of their long-wavelength vision to better suit the environment.

    Cuttlefish have the same basic poorly-understood visual system of octopi, but actually have two fovea, so that they can simultaneously focus behind and in front of themselves (and have binocular vision).

    Lots of species can see polarization - a visual ability which we completely lack.

    Raptors eyes pretty much blow ours away in both color range and acuity - their only weakness seems to be terrible night vision.

    Basically - yes, our eyes are pretty good for what we need them for, but they are far from the best. Not in any specific application, or even in general capacity. They're just what we're accustomed to, and so become the baseline against which we measure others. Basically, our vision hasn't been our species big advantage since long before we became human, and so evolution hasn't really done much to it except keep it from degrading too badly.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @07:05PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 28 2017, @07:05PM (#560412)

    Basically - yes, our eyes are pretty good for what we need them for, but they are far from the best. Not in any specific application, or even in general capacity.

    Again, I completely disagree. You need to point out some animals which have significantly better vision in all ways than ours, and which have *zero* disadvantages. I don't think you'll find a single one.

    Raptors eyes pretty much blow ours away in both color range and acuity - their only weakness seems to be terrible night vision.

    And here's a good example here. Night vision is pretty important: we're awake for at least 16 hours a day, so we do need at least somewhat-decent night vision. Maybe not as good as cats', but certainly not "terrible".

    Every species is the same way: its vision is tuned for the environment it lives in, and the way it lives, and on top of that it has to fit in with the rest of their bodies and work with their brains.

    and their eyes are mobile enough to allow either near-360 or binocular vision.

    Yeah, and octopi don't have any bones either which makes that possible. How well would we survive without any skull bones? Not very well. And I'd like to see how well octopi can see outside, on land, in the middle of the summer at the brightest point of the daytime. We can handle that just fine, perhaps with a bit of squinting. Sea creatures are not going to have eyes evolved for extreme brightness as found on land.

    Basically, our vision hasn't been our species big advantage since long before we became human

    I challenge you to find any animals with vision that's better in every single metric.

    To use a car analogy, this is like arguing whether sports cars, pickup trucks, or Priuses are better. I'd like to see a Prius or sports car that can pull a boat, and I'd like to see a pickup truck that gets 50mpg or can handle the way a sports car does. There's never any one thing that's clearly better in every single metric.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 28 2017, @07:36PM (1 child)

      by Immerman (3985) on Monday August 28 2017, @07:36PM (#560439)

      Better in every single metric is ridiculous. I challenge you to find any vision-heavy species whose vision is *worse* than ours in every single metric. That should be easy if ours is truly "the best" in any meaningful form, right?

      Better overall/on average is pretty much the only metric that makes any sense when comparing between very different systems. And by that standard ours vision is... okay. Maybe even pretty good.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 28 2017, @08:03PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 28 2017, @08:03PM (#560456)

        I challenge you to find any vision-heavy species whose vision is *worse* than ours in every single metric.

        I never made any such claim. Lots of species have vision that's better in some metric than ours. I don't think any has vision better in *every* metric. That's the whole nature of a trade-off.

        Are you not an engineer?

        That should be easy if ours is truly "the best" in any meaningful form, right?

        I never said humans have "the best" vision, only that it's the best for our particular niche. Many other animals have "the best" vision for their own niche. Octopi have great vision in many ways. But they don't live on land, and we don't live on the ocean floor, (and we don't have boneless bodies either) so their vision isn't suitable for us, nor vice-versa.

        And by that standard ours vision is... okay. Maybe even pretty good.

        And which species exactly has superior vision?