Error-Related Negativity in Children: Effect of an Observer

Abstract

This research assessed the effect of an observer upon error-related negativity (ERN) in 20 children (ages 7-11): 9 worked alone and 11 worked under the observation of a friend of theirs (alone/audience groups). Erroneous motor responses were recorded to Go and No-Go visual stimuli (triangles in different orientations) at three brain sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Results for children were consistent with past adult studies in showing a significantly larger ERN only to erroneous responses in both the alone and the audience groups. Children in the audience group produced larger ERNs than those in the alone group. Furthermore, older children (ages 9-11) produced larger ERNs than younger children (ages 7-8) in both groups. These findings were discussed in the context of an action monitoring system that regulates responses, detects errors, and entrains affective responses associated with correct and incorrect responses.

Error-related event-related potentials in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, reading disorder, and math disorder

“…Davies et al (2004) found that CRN was larger in children than in adults, though their CRN --like ours--had positive polarity with respect to the pre-response baseline. Also consistent with other studies of children (Davies et al, 2004;Hogan et al, 2005;Kim et al, 2005;LaDouceur et al, 2004;) as well as adult studies reporting finding CRN (Falkenstein et al, 1990;Vidal et al, 2000), our CRN was smaller than ERN. Importantly, investigations that did not find CRN had matched correct and error trials on reaction time (Gehring et al, 1993;Dehaene et al, 1994) whereas this matching was not accomplished in many investigations reporting a CRN.…”

“…On the other hand, Gehring et al (1993), who synchronized ERN measurement with the onset of the EMG response, reported mean ERN latencies of 110 ms, a value also close to that obtained in the present work. In addition, our ERN latencies are consistent with those reported by Kim et al (2005) for children's EMG-synchronized ERNs. On the whole, the present finding of later ERN latencies for children than previously reported for adults is consistent with the widely established developmental finding that ERP latencies decrease with development (Dustman and Beck, 1969;Courchesne, 1978).…”

“…This result is consistent with some studies with adult samples that found that ERN amplitude is maximal at frontal leads and diminishes across the midline (Falkenstein et al, 1990(Falkenstein et al, , 1995Gehring et al, 1993); however, other reports have indicated that ERN peaked at Cz (Vidal et al, 2000). Recent studies of children spanning a wide age range (Davies, Segalowitz, and Gavin, 2004;Kim, Iwaki, Uno, and Fujita, 2005;Santesso, Segalowitz, and Schmidt, 2005) also found a frontal focus for ERN. The similarity between the scalp topography of the present pediatric ERN with the centro-frontal topography reported for adult subjects supports the assumption that the same component was measured in both children and adults.…”

“…In fact, in that study, it was not until adolescence that ERNs exhibited negative amplitude relative to the pre-response baseline. Notably, other groups have also reported that ERN amplitude is smaller in children and increases through adolescence (Hogan, Vargha-Khadem, Kirkham, and Baldeweg, 2005;Kim et al, 2005;Ladouceur, Dahl, and Carter, 2004).…”

Error monitoring in children with ADHD or reading disorder: An event-related potential study

“…The Go/no-go task used in the present study was based on the one adopted by Kim, Iwaki, Uno, and Fujita (2005) to study the Ne in Japanese school-age children. The reason for choosing this task was its potential to elicit a high percentage of commission errors (± 30% in control children).…”