Parental presence with encouragement alters feedback processing in preschoolers: An ERP study

ABSTRACT

External feedback plays an important role in adapting to the environment; however, feedback processing in preschoolers has not been fully understood. The present event-related brain potential (ERP) study sought to understand the influence of parental presence with encouragement on feedback processing by focusing on reward positivity (RewP: mean amplitude between 200–350 ms). Five-year-old children (N = 21) completed an animal search task both alone (the alone condition) and with a parent who offered words of encouragement (the with a parent condition). ERPs were recorded while they received negative and positive feedback. We found a larger RewP amplitude in response to positive feedback in the with a parent condition relative to in the alone condition. In addition, differences in RewP between positive and negative feedback were only observed in the with a parent condition. These findings suggest that everyday parental encouragement has the potential to promote differential positive and negative feedback processing possibly by enhancing the reward value of positive feedback.

KEYWORDS:

• Feedback processing
• RewP
• parental encouragement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency [ImPACT]; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (15J07499), Scientific Research B (15H03449)].