Psychological tests are usually conducted under conditions of “cold cognition”—hypothetical, low-emotion situations. However, real-world decision making often occurs under conditions of “hot cognition”—high arousal, with peer pressure and real consequences. Neuroimaging investigations continue to discern the different biological circuitry involved in hot and cold cognition and are beginning to map how the parts of the brain involved in decision making mature. For instance, adolescents show exaggerated nucleus accumbens activation to reward compared to children but not a difference in orbital frontal activation (Galvan et al., 2006). Prolonged maturation of the PFC has also been shown to be related to age-related improvement in memory for details of experiences (in contrast to earlier maturing medial temporal lobe structures subserving nonexperiential memories) (Ofen et al., 2007).
