Implicit statistical learning (ISL) allows for the learning of environmental patterns and is thought to be important for many aspects of perception, cognition, and language development. However, very little is known about the development of the underlying neural mechanisms that support ISL. To explore the neurodevelopment of ISL, we investigated the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of learning in adults, older children (aged 9-12), and younger children (aged 6-9) using a novel predictor-target paradigm. In this task, which was a modification of the standard oddball paradigm, participants were instructed to view a serial input stream of visual stimuli and to respond with a button press when a particular target appeared. Unbeknownst to the participants, covert statistical probabilities were embedded in the task such that the target was predicted to varying degrees by different predictor stimuli. The results were similar across all three age groups: a P300 component that was elicited by the high predictor stimulus after sufficient exposure to the statistical probabilities. These neurophysiological findings provide evidence for developmental invariance in ISL, with adult-like competence reached by at least age 6.

Given accumulating evidence indicating that acute and chronic physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are related to modulation of the P3b‐ERP component, this systematic review provides an overview of the field across the last 30+ years and discusses future directions as the field continues to develop. A systematic review was conducted on studies of physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness on P3b. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched from database inception to March 28, 2018. Search results were limited to peer‐reviewed and English‐written studies investigating typically developed individuals. Seventy‐two studies were selected, with 39 studies examining cross‐sectional relationships between chronic physical activity (n = 19) and cardiorespiratory fitness (n = 20) with P3b, with 16 and 17 studies reporting associations of P3b with physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness, respectively. Eight studies investigated the effects of chronic physical activity interventions, and all found effects on P3b. Eight studies investigating P3b during acute bouts of physical activity showed inconsistent results. Nineteen of 23 studies demonstrated acute modulation of P3b following exercise cessation. Conclusions drawn from this systematic review suggest that physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with P3b modulation during cognitive control and attention tasks. Acute and chronic physical activity interventions modulate the P3b component, suggesting short‐ and long‐term functional adaptations occurring in the brain to support cognitive processes. These summary findings suggest physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are beneficial to brain function and that P3b may serve as a biomarker of covert attentional processes to better understand the relationship of physical activity and cognition.

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Previous research suggests that individuals with developmental dyslexia perform below typical readers on non-linguistic cognitive tasks involving the learning and encoding of statistical-sequential patterns. However, the neural mechanisms underlying such a deficit have not been well examined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of sequence processing in a sample of children diagnosed with dyslexia using a non-linguistic visual statistical learning paradigm. Whereas the response time data suggested that both typical and atypical readers learned the statistical patterns embedded in the task, the ERP data suggested otherwise. Specifically, ERPs of the typically developing children (n = 12) showed a P300-like response indicative of learning, whereas the children diagnosed with a reading disorder (n = 8) showed no such ERP effects. These results may be due to intact implicit motor learning in the children with dyslexia but delayed attention-dependent predictive processing. These findings are consistent with other evidence suggesting that differences in statistical learning ability might underlie some of the reading deficits observed in developmental dyslexia.

This is the first study to demonstrate that retinal L and Z, measured as MPOD, is positively related to academic achievement in children, even after accounting for the robust effects of IQ and other demographic factors. These findings extend the positive associations observed between MPOD and cognitive abilities to a pediatric population. Trail registration: The Fitness Improves Thinking in Kids 2 (FITKids2) trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01619826.