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Children younger than three years old are able to detect hidden rules in numerical sequences, and this ability matches that of adults by age seven. However, the developmental trajectory of this ability during the ages of four to six remains unknown. The present study adopted a modified Brixton task to address this issue. In this task, children were presented with sequences of moving circles and were asked to predict which circle would next turn blue based on hidden rules that were either simple (e.g. + 2) or complex (e.g. + 2 - 1). Results suggested that (a) four-year-olds were only able to detect comparably few simple rules, whereas children older than 4.5 years were able to successfully detect most of the simple rules hidden in number sequences; (b) although all children performed significantly poorer when attempting to identify complex rules as compared with simple rules, rule detection (RD) ability improved rapidly with age, and children older than five were able to identify most complex rules. These findings extended previous work on rule learning by revealing the developmental trajectory of RD among preschoolers.

Previous studies have revealed the effect of set size (the number of activated items) on object switching in working memory, but the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. In this study, participants were asked to first remember two (small size) or three (large size) two‐digit numbers and the corresponding geometrical figures as different references for numerical comparison and then compare a series of numbers (10–99) to the reference numbers cued by different geometrical figures. The cue repeated or switched across trials. Behavioral results revealed that the switch cost was greater in the large‐size condition than in the small‐size condition. Event‐related potential results showed that in the N2 component, an interaction was observed between set size and transition, with a significant transition effect (switch minus repeat) in the large‐size condition and a non‐significant transition effect in the small‐size condition. The same interaction was observed in the P3 component, with a larger amplitude difference (switch minus repeat) in the large‐size condition than in the small‐size condition. These results suggested that when set size is increased, the effort to inhibit the irrelevant items increases, resulting in large cost of object switching in working memory. In the first ERP study of the neural mechanisms underlying the effect of set size on the cost of object switching in working memory, we showed that the effect of memory set size on switch cost is mirrored in brain potentials in the N2 and P3 components, with a larger amplitude difference (switch minus repeat) in large‐size than small‐size condition, reflecting increased selective inhibition of irrelevant items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to reveal the temporal course and electrophysiological correlates of interpersonal guilt. Human participants were asked to perform multiple rounds of a dot-estimation task with their partners, while event-related potential being recorded. The paired participants were informed that they would win money if both responded correctly; otherwise, both of them would lose money. The feeling of guilt in Self-Wrong condition (SW) was significantly higher than that in Both-Wrong and Partner-Wrong conditions. At approximately 350 ms after the onset of feedback presentation, greater negativities were observed in the frontal regions in the guilt condition (i.e., SW) than those in the non-guilt condition. The guilt-modulated frontal negativity might reflect the interactions of self-reflection, condemnation, and negative emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]