Alternatively, adolescent behavioral disparities could relate to differences in cognitive strategies. One hypothesis, called “fuzzy trace theory,” states that far from lacking in cognitive ability, adolescents process the risk/benefit details of choices more explicitly than adults. Paradoxically, adolescents may behave more rationally than adults by more explicitly computing the expected values of different options, but this could lead to greater risk taking (Rivers et al., 2008). According to Rivers and colleagues (2008), through development we progress from doing more literal “verbatim” to a “fuzzy” gist-level heuristic that captures the essence or bottom line without details. This presumably improves the efficiency of decision making and tends to bias us away from risky choices as we tend to avoid potential adverse outcomes without assessing the actual probabilities involved. For example, unlike adolescents, adults favor choices that attach certainty to increased gains or reduced losses over probabilistic alternatives with identical expected values (Rivers et al., 2008). Overall, the idea that adolescent choices could reflect differences in cognitive strategy—but not deficiencies in outcome prediction—is intriguing. Future neuroimaging and physiology studies of adolescent decision making
