Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Hearing Sciences-Scottish Section, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, University of Nottingham, Glasgow, UK.
Dev Psychobiol. 2021 Dec;63(8):e22216. doi: 10.1002/dev.22216.
Conflict monitoring is central in cognitive control, as detection of conflict serves as a signal for the need to engage control. This study examined whether (1) midfrontal theta oscillations similarly support conflict monitoring in children and adults, and (2) performance monitoring difficulty influences conflict monitoring and resolution. Children (n = 25) and adults (n = 24) completed a flanker task with fair or rigged response feedback. Relative to adults, children showed a smaller congruency effect on midfrontal theta power, overall lower midfrontal theta power and coherence, and (unlike adults) no correlation between midfrontal theta power and N2 amplitude, suggesting that reduced neural communication efficiency contributes to less efficient conflict monitoring in children than adults. In both age groups, response feedback fairness affected response times and the P3, but neither midfrontal theta oscillations nor the N2, indicating that performance monitoring difficulty influenced conflict resolution but not conflict monitoring.
冲突监测在认知控制中至关重要，因为冲突的检测可以作为需要进行控制的信号。本研究旨在探讨：（1）额中theta 振荡是否同样支持儿童和成人的冲突监测；（2）绩效监测难度是否会影响冲突监测和解决。儿童（n=25）和成人（n=24）完成了一项带有公平或作弊反馈的侧抑制任务。与成人相比，儿童在额中theta 功率上的一致性效应较小，额中theta 功率和相干性总体较低，而且（与成人不同）额中 theta 功率与 N2 振幅之间没有相关性，这表明与成人相比，儿童的神经通讯效率降低，导致其冲突监测效率较低。在两个年龄组中，反馈公平性都影响了反应时和 P3，但额中 theta 振荡和 N2 都没有受到影响，这表明绩效监测难度影响了冲突解决，但不影响冲突监测。
