Age-related differences in brain activity during extended continuous word recognition in children

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Verbal recognition memory is crucial for learning.
• Understanding its development in children informs educational strategies.
• Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer insights into neural processes underlying memory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the developmental trajectory of verbal recognition memory in primary-school children.
• To examine age-related differences in neural correlates of memory using ERPs.
• To explore the relationship between recognition memory performance and verbal learning abilities.

Main Methods:

• An extended continuous recognition task was administered to 72 children (36 younger, 8-9 years; 36 older, 11-12 years).
• Event-related potentials (ERPs), including N1, P2, N400, and late positive complex (LPC), were recorded.
• Data analysis focused on old/new effects and multiple repetition effects.

Main Results:

• Younger children showed a significant P2 repetition effect, indicating reliance on orthographic representations.
• Older children exhibited a stronger N400 old/new effect, suggesting development of lexical-semantic processing.
• Correlations revealed associations between N400 effects and verbal learning in older children, and LPC effects with recognition accuracy in both groups.

Conclusions:

• Neural mechanisms supporting verbal recognition memory mature with age, transitioning from orthographic to lexical-semantic processing.
• Recollection, indexed by the LPC, is important for recognition memory across childhood.
• Findings highlight distinct developmental pathways for different memory components.