Brains in Motion: Error Processing in Sensorimotor Learning Across Development

Abstract

Error processing is crucial for the acquisition and adaptation of sensorimotor behavior. Despite its relevance throughout the entire lifespan, the development and underlying mechanisms of error processing during sensorimotor learning remain less well understood. By integrating behavioral and neural perspectives across development, this dissertation investigates how children, adolescents, and adults detect and process errors during motor learning and adaptation. Study I examines force adaptation in toddlers and young adults in response to sensory prediction errors. Study II uses a meta-analytic approach to assess whether the FRN, as an event-related potential of external feedback processing, reflects domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms in motor and cognitive tasks. Finally, Study III examines neural mechanisms of error processing during a speed-dependent, age-adjusted motor task in children, adolescents, and young adults. Across the three studies, the dissertation shows that error processing (I) emerges early in development, (II) is shaped by domain-specific demands and feedback characteristics in the motor domain, and (III) involves both the predictive evaluation of errors and the postdictive processing of external feedback from middle childhood through adolescence into young adulthood. A central methodological contribution of this work is the introduction of the Magic Drawer Paradigm, an age-adaptable motor learning and adaptation task suitable for both behavioral and EEG research.

By integrating behavioral and neural perspectives across development, these studies offer converging insights into the early development of error processing in the motor domain. Across the three studies, the dissertation shows that error processing (I) emerges early in development, (II) is shaped by domain-specific demands and feedback characteristics in the motor domain, and (III) operates in parallel at predictive and postdictive stages from middle childhood through adolescence into young adulthood. A central methodological contribution of this work is the introduction of the Magic Drawer Paradigm, an age-adaptable motor learning and adaptation task suitable for both behavioral and EEG research.