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 ERPs. The current study utilizes time-frequency (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 age. Results showed no error-specific age-related changes in the ERN, but the Pe increased at older ages. TF analyses suggested error-related frontocentral responses in delta and theta signal strength (power), delta consistency (inter-trial phase synchrony), and delta synchrony (inter-channel 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. In general, most measures demonstrated adequate overall internal consistency reliability. However, for most measures, more trials were needed to achieve acceptable reliability than what is commonly used in the psychophysiological literature. Together, the current study offers a comprehensive examination of the development of error monitoring in early childhood.
Age-related changes in the dynamics of fear-related regulation in early childhood
