The period from adolescence through young adulthood is one of great promise and vulnerability. As teenagers approach maturity, they must develop and apply the skills and habits necessary to navigate adulthood and compete in an ever more technological and globalized world. But as parents and researchers have long known, there is a crucial dichotomy between adolescents' cognitive competence and their frequent inability to utilize that competence in everyday decision-making. This volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of leading scientists to examine 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. The contributors ask questions that seek to uncover the basic mechanisms underlying brain development in adolescence, such as: -How do the concepts of proof and reasoning emerge? -What is the relationship between cognitive and procedural understanding in problem-solving? -How can researchers build assessments to capture and describe learning over time? The Adolescent Brainraises questions relevant to young people's educational and health outcomes, as well as to neuroscience research. Table of Contents Preface (or Acknowledgements) - Valerie F. Reyna Introduction - Valerie F. Reyna, Sandra B. Chapman, Michael R. Dougherty, and Jere Confrey I. Foundations 1. Anatomic Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Developing Child and Adolescent Brain - Jay N. Giedd, Michael Stockman, Catherine Weddle, Maria Liverpool, Gregory L. Wallace, Nancy R. Lee, Francois Lalonde, and Rhoshel K. Lenroot II. Memory, Meaning, and Representation 2. Semantic and Associative Relations in Adolescents and Young Adults: Examining a Tenuous Dichotomy - Ken McRae, Saman Khalkhali, and Mary Hare 3. Representation and Transfer of Abstract Mathematical Concepts in Adolescence and Young Adulthood - Jennifer A. Kaminski and Vladimir M. Sloutsky 4. A Value of Concrete Learning Materials in Adolescence - Kristen P. Blair and Daniel L. Schwartz 5. Higher-Order Strategic Gist-Reasoning in Adolescence - Sandra B. Chapman, Jacquelyn F. Gamino, and Raksha Anand III. Learning, Reasoning, and Problem Solving 6. Better Measurement of Higher-Cognitive Processes through Learning Trajectories and Diagnostic Assessments in Mathematics: The Challenge in Adolescence - Jere Confrey 7. Adolescent Reasoning in Mathematical and Non-Mathematical Domains: Exploring the Paradox - Eric Knuth, Charles Kalish, Amy Ellis, Caroline Williams, and Mathew Felton 8. Training the Adolescent Brain: Neural Plasticity and the Acquisition of Cognitive Abilities - Sharona M. Atkins, Michael F. Bunting, Donald J. Bolger, and Michael R. Dougherty 9. Higher Cognition is Altered by Non-Cognitive Factors: How Affect Enhances and Disrupts Mathematics Performance in Adolescence and Young Adulthood - Mark H. Ashcraft and Nathan O. Rudig IV. Judgment and Decision Making 10. Risky Behavior in Adolescents: The Role of the Developing Brain - Adrianna Galvan 11. Affective Motivators and Experience in Adolescents Development of Health-Related Behavior Patterns - Sandra L. Schneider and Christine M. Caffray 12. Judgment and Decision Making in Adolescence: Separating Intelligence from Rationality - Keith Stanovich, Richard F. West, and Maggie E. Toplak 13. A Fuzzy-Trace Theory of Adolescent Risk Taking: Beyond Self-Control and Sensation Seeking - Christina Chick and Valerie F. Reyna V. Epilogue 14. Paradoxes in the Adolescent Brain in Cognition, Emotion, and Rationality - Valerie F. Reyna