Functional brain activations correlated with association strength and prediction error during novel symbol–speech sound learning

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Abstract Efficient learning of letters–speech sound associations results in the specialization of visual and audiovisual brain regions, which is crucial for the development of proficient reading skills. However, the brain dynamics underlying this learning process remain poorly understood, and the involvement of learning and performance monitoring networks remains underexplored. Here we applied two mutually dependent feedback learning tasks in which novel symbol–speech sound associations were learned by 39 healthy adults. We employed functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) along with a reinforcement learning drift diffusion model to characterize trial-by-trial learning in behavior and brain. The model-based analysis showed that posterior–occipital activations during stimulus processing were positively modulated by trial-wise learning, as indicated by the increase in association strength between audiovisual pairs. Prediction errors, describing the update mechanism to learn from feedback across trials, modulated activations in several mid-frontal, striatal, and cingulate regions. Both tasks yielded similar patterns of results, despite differences in their relative difficulty. This study elucidates the processes involved in audiovisual learning that contribute to rapid visual specialization within a single experimental session and delineates a set of coactivated regions involved in learning from feedback. Our paradigm provides a framework to advance our understanding of the neurobiology of learning and reading development.