AN EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS STUDY OF <EM>EARLY AND LATE STAGES OF THE ASSOCIATIVE </EM><EM>LEARNING IN </EM><EM>CHILDREN AND </EM><EM>ADOLESCEN</EM><EM>TS</EM>

Aims: Associative learning involves two phases: early (rule acquisition, linking stimulus, response, and outcome) and late (rule rehearsal). This complex process recruits cognitive operations with distinct developmental trajectories. Event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes and latencies index task complexity and cognitive effort, which may decrease with age and from early to late phases. The aim of the study was to trace stage- and age-related ERP changes during an associative learning task.
Methods: Healthy participants (N=155, ages 7-20 years) were grouped by age: 7-11 (n=52), 12-16 (n=51), and 17-20 years (n=52). During EEG recording, participants viewed a cue on the left or right screen half and pressed the corresponding button per a covert position-based rule. Feedback indicated response accuracy, enabling rule deduction. Rules changed every 5-7 trials. ERPs were extracted (-200 to 800 ms) time-locked to cue and feedback onsets, averaged separately for anterior and posterior sites, and analyzed via repeated-measures ANOVA.
Results: Feedback-locked P3 amplitudes (anterior and posterior) were larger in the early versus late phase. Age effects showed declining absolute amplitudes with increasing age for cue-locked anterior N1/N4 and posterior P3, as well as feedback-locked anterior N1 and posterior P3.
Conclusions: Participants produce larger feedback-locked P3 amplitudes on the early stage demanding greater cognitive resource allocation. With age, anterior N1, N4, and posterior P3 amplitudes diminish, indicating increase in neural efficiency.
Funding: This research was funded by the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No.BR27198099).