Linking events and their consequences – experts refer to this as associative learning – is a crucial skill for adapting to the environment. It has a major influence on our mental health. A study by the Research and Treatment Centre for Mental Health at Ruhr University Bochum shows that children of primary school age have the highest learning performance in this respect. The results provide a new understanding of associative learning disorders, which are linked to the later development of mental illness. The researchers report on this in the journal Communications Psychology from 16 December 2024.
Bochum/Germany, February 27, 2025 Young people benefit from multiple learning cycles.
Until now, it was unclear how associative learning develops over different stages of life. The team led by Prof Dr Silvia Schneider, Professor of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and Dr Carolin Konrad therefore systematically examined infants, children, adolescents and adults with regard to this ability for the first time. In the study, test subjects were asked to learn to respond to a stimulus with a specific reaction.
The results were surprising for the scientific team: ‘We originally assumed that associative learning would continuously improve with increasing age,’ reports Carolin Konrad. In fact, however, there was a clear peak in performance at primary school age: ‘Children of this age achieved the best results, learned most consistently and showed the least variability in their learning behaviour.’ Although adults and adolescents learnt faster than infants, they did not reach the performance level of primary school children. It was also shown that the re-presentation of what has been learnt plays a decisive role in infants and adolescents. An additional learning session led to an improvement in learning performance in these age groups.
Basis for understanding abnormalities in associative learning
Overall, the study shows that associative learning is present across the lifespan, but that the rates and amounts of learning vary. ‘The systematic investigation of age-typical associative learning during development into adulthood forms the basis for understanding associative learning disorders that underlie the later development of a variety of psychopathologies,’ explains Carolin Konrad.
Funding
The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (project number 316803389) as part of the SFB 1280 extinction learning research network.
Further information
Research and Treatment Centre for Mental Health: (https://fbz-bochum.de/)
Original publication:
Carolin Konrad, Lina Neuhoff, Dirk Adolph, Stephan Goerigk, S., Jane S. Herbert, Julie Jagusch-Poirier, Sabine Seehagen, Sarah Weigelt, Silvia Schneider: Associative Learning via Eyeblink Conditioning differs by Age from Infancy to Adulthood, in: Communications Psychology, 2024, 10.1038/s44271-024-00176-4, (https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00176-4)
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