Human cognitive neuroscience seminar

Speaker: Hyeji Lee (University of Edinburgh)

Title: Developmental Trajectories of Cognitive Control during Explicit Learning: Theta and alpha power across fast and slow timescales

Abstract: Acquiring a new skill, like playing the piano, initially demands significant cognitive control. As one becomes proficient, reliance on cognitive control reduces, enabling skill automation. In adults, this transition is evident behaviourally, through improved response times and accuracy, and neurally, marked by two changes: (1) reduced frontal theta power across trial blocks(slow time scale), and (2) decreased alpha power suppression within each block(fast time scale). Yet, our understanding of this adaptive cognitive control during explicit learning throughout developmental stages is limited. Children may not show as efficient disengagement of cognitive control as adults, potentially impeding skill automatisation. To explore this, we designed child-friendly explicit learning tasks and measured neural activity with EEG. Given the extended maturation of cognitive control into adulthood, we encompassed three age groups to delineate its developmental progression.