Individual differences in naturalistic learning link negative emotionality to the development of anxiety.

Organisms learn from prediction errors (PEs) to predict the future. Laboratory studies using small financial outcomes find that humans use PEs to update expectations and link individual differences in PE-based learning to internalizing disorders. Because of the low-stakes outcomes in most tasks, it is unclear whether PE learning emerges in naturalistic, high-stakes contexts and whether individual differences in PE learning predict psychopathology risk.

Real-World Exploration Increases Across Adolescence and Relates to Affect, Risk Taking, and Social Connectivity.

Cross-species research suggests that exploratory behaviors increase during adolescence and relate to the social, affective, and risky behaviors characteristic of this developmental stage. However, how these typical adolescent behaviors manifest and relate in real-world settings remains unclear. Using geolocation tracking to quantify exploration-variability in daily movement patterns-over a 3-month period in 58 adolescents and adults (ages 13-27) in New York City, we investigated whether daily exploration varied with age and whether exploration related to social connectivity, risk taking, and momentary positive affect.

Association between real-world experiential diversity and positive affect relates to hippocampal-striatal functional connectivity.

Experiential diversity promotes well-being in animal models. Here, using geolocation tracking, experience sampling and neuroimaging, we found that daily variability in physical location was associated with increased positive affect in humans. This effect was stronger for individuals who exhibited greater functional coupling of the hippocampus and striatum.