Time–frequency dynamics of error monitoring in childhood: An EEG study

Abstract

Error monitoring allows individuals to monitor and adapt their behavior by detecting errors. Error monitoring is thought to develop throughout childhood and adolescence. However, most of this evidence comes from studies in late childhood and adolescence utilizing event-related potentials (ERPs). The current study utilizes timefrequency (TF) and connectivity analyses to provide a comprehensive examination of age-related changes in error-monitoring processes across early childhood (N = 326; 50.9% females; 4-9 years). ERP analyses indicated the presence of the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) across all ages. Results showed no errorspecific age-related changes in the ERN and the Pe. However, TF analyses suggested error-related frontocentral responses in delta and theta signal strength (power), delta consistency (intertrial phase synchrony), and delta synchrony (interchannel phase synchrony) between frontrocentral and frontolateral clusters-all of which increased with age. Additionally, the current study examines the reliability and effect size estimates of the ERP and TF measures. For most measures, more trials were needed to achieve acceptable reliability than what is commonly used in the psychophysiological literature. Resources to facilitate the measurement and reporting of reliability are provided.Overall, findings highlight the utility of TF analyses and provide useful information for future studies examining the development of error monitoring.

Annual Research Review: Developmental pathways linking early behavioral inhibition to later anxiety

“…When participants believed their performance was being monitored by a peer, participants showed enhancements in theta measures indexing post‐response error monitoring and proactive control (Buzzell et al., 2019). These types of time‐frequency analytic approaches are more frequently used with young children (Morales et al., 2022; Morales & Bowers, 2022) and may bring us closer to a more mechanistic understanding of the neural processes involved in cognitive control than traditional approaches.…”

Methods and metrics for EEG/ERP assessment of emotion and cognition in young children

“…A second issue with which studies of developing populations often contend is the apparently high degree of within-and between-person variation in nearly all commonly used measures of neural activity relative to adults samples. Several articles in this special issue note a high degree of within-person variability in neural metrics at the earliest ages of measurement (Brooker et al, 2021;Guy, Conte, et al, 2021;Vincent et al, 2021), with additional findings of increasing stability over time (Brooker et al, 2021;Morales et al, 2022). In this way, an element of data collection that is often considered noise may in fact be consistent with expectations for healthy, developing population and may be usefully considered rather than discarded.…”

Development of auditory change‐detection and attentional capture, and their relation to inhibitory control

“…For example, distinct developmental changes in power and phase synchrony can amplify or mask observed changes in the magnitude of an ERP component (DuPuis et al, 2015; Gavin et al, 2019; Morales & Bowers, 2022). This can lead to developmental changes that are only observable when using time‐frequency analyses and not when utilizing ERPs (Bowers et al, 2018, 2021; Morales et al, 2022).…”

“…Although most studies have focused on neuronal oscillations in the theta frequency range, neuronal activity in the delta frequency range (<4 Hz) has also been implicated in detection and attention‐orienting processes, primarily in work with adults (Bishop, Anderson, et al, 2011; Cavanagh et al, 2009; Isler et al, 2008; Munneke et al, 2015; Prada et al, 2014). Moreover, delta power and ITPS have been found to significantly increase with age across childhood and adolescence (Bowers et al, 2018; Morales et al, 2022). Consequently, in an exploratory analysis, we also investigated oscillations in the delta band.…”

“…The goal of these analyses was to examine if these electrophysiological measures were associated with behavioral measures of top‐down attention, rather than differentiate bottom‐up and top‐down processes. We hypothesized that delta and theta signal strength (power) and consistency (ITPS) to deviant and novel stimuli would be positively associated with increased inhibitory control because similar delta/theta responses have been observed in cognitive control (Cavanagh et al, 2009; Morales et al, 2022). Moreover, although no study has specifically examined the relations between the ERP measures (P3a, MMN, and LDN) and inhibitory control, studies with adults suggest that conditions that evoke the P3a are associated with behavioral task impairments (i.e., slower RTs and worse performance) on a task‐switching paradigm (Barceló et al, 2006).…”