The Development of Cognitive Reward Sensitivity

Children drive pleasure from a range of cognitive activities. This raises a central question: does the developing mind treat cognitive outcomes as a distinct class of rewards, and how does sensitivity to these ‘cognitive rewards’ change across development? Across two large studies (N = 588, 4-12 year-olds) we show that diverse cognitive outcomes (including knowledge gain, uncertainty reduction, novelty, and agency expansion) robustly elicit reward-consistent behavior. Crucially, dimensionality reduction analyses revealed a cognitive specific reward component that was dissociable from sensitivity to non-cognitive rewards such as social and sensory rewards. Sensitivity to cognitive rewards followed an inverted-U trajectory, rising from early childhood, peaking in middle childhood, and declining toward adolescence. These findings reveals that cognitive pleasure constitutes a partially distinct reward domain with a unique developmental window, which may be especially important in shaping the motivation to learn.