The ability to learn from expectations is foundational to social and nonsocial learning in children. However, we know little about the brain basis of reward expectation in development. Here, 3- to 4-year-olds (N = 26) were shown a passive associative learning paradigm with dynamic stimuli. Anticipation for reward-related stimuli was measured via the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN). To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure an SPN in children younger than age 6. Our findings reveal distinct anticipatory neural signatures for social versus nonsocial stimuli, consistent with previous research in older children. This study suggests an SPN can be elicited in preschoolers and is larger for social than nonsocial stimuli.

中文翻译：

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对学龄前儿童的社会和非社会动态线索的预期

从期望中学习的能力是儿童社交和非社交学习的基础。然而，我们对发展中奖励期望的大脑基础知之甚少。在这里，3 到 4 岁的孩子（N  = 26）被展示了一种带有动态刺激的被动联想学习范式。对奖赏相关刺激的预期是通过消极前的刺激 (SPN) 来衡量的。据我们所知，这是第一项测量 6 岁以下儿童 SPN 的研究。我们的研究结果揭示了社会和非社会刺激的不同预期神经特征，这与之前对年龄较大儿童的研究一致。这项研究表明 SPN 可以在学龄前儿童中引起，并且对于社交刺激比非社交刺激更大。