Brain Event-Related Potential Correlates of Concept Learning.

An irrelevant auditory probe procedure was used to evoke brain event-related potentials (ERPs) in 56 Navy recruits while they learned pulsed radar concepts presented to them in study booklets. A mastery test was administered to assess concept acquisition. The research issue was whether brain ERPs recorded while students are in the process of learning are correlated with their subsequent achievement and performance. Test items became criteria for multiple regression and discriminant analyses using as predictors ERP amplitudes that corresponded to specific concepts. One regression analysis indicated that ERPs recorded at the right temporal and parietal areas are significantly related to concept acquisition. Three discriminant analyses showed that ERPs evoked at the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital and the left parietal regions significantly distinguished below- from above-average concept learners. Poorer learners engaged the right frontal and temporal regions less and with greater variability than did better learners. The study established that the right frontal, temporal, and parietal areas are significantly associated with concept learning--not only left hemisphere regions as proposed in the popular asymmetric model of the brain. (Author/YLB)