The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making

In the second decade of life, young adults have endless choices, but the decisions they make depend on developing the power of the human brain to learn and reason. In a Chats in the Stacks book talk at Mann Library, Cornell professor of human development and psychology Dr. Valerie Reyna introduces her new book, “The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making” published by the American Psychological Association in 2012. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of leading scientists, the volume examines how the adolescent brain develops and how this development impacts various aspects of reasoning and decision-making, from the use and function of memory and representation, to judgment, mathematical problem-solving, and the construction of meaning.