This study investigated electrophysiological (EEG) measures as a function of individual differences in facets of impulsivity, learning ability, and learning practice during an instrumental learning task. Data analysis (48 women participants) was based on EEG activity within 1-s epoch following visual feedback signals of monetary gain and loss. The EEG spectral power and coherence measures were derived from 30 scalp sites for delta (0.5–3.5 Hz), theta (3.5–7 Hz), lower alpha (7–9.5 Hz), upper alpha (10–12.5 Hz), beta (15–20 Hz), and gammabands (36–44 Hz). High attentional, impulsive individuals displayed a greater error rate than low attentional impulsives. Monetary loss produced greater spectral power than monetary gain for the theta band over frontal scalp sites, while a greater upper alpha power was found for monetary gain across centroparieto-occipital sites. Learning taskpracticewasassociatedwith increased lower alphapowerover centro-parietal sites, increasedupper alphapower over parietal sites, and reduced gamma power over left temporal sites. Good learners as compared to bad learners had (1) enhanced theta on centro-parietal sites and reducedon frontal sites, (2) enhancedbetapower on temporal sites and reduced on parieto-occipital sites, (3) enhanced gamma power on fronto-temporal sites for both monetary loss and gain signals. Good learner/low attentional impulsivity participants, for both monetary loss and gain signals, had a greater gamma power on temporal sites as compared to bad learner/high and low attentional impulsivity groups. The enhanced error rate and the reduced gamma power found in high attentional impulsive subjects are consistent with a number of previous studies indicating frontal lobe dysfunction in association with impulsive behavior and may indicate that impulsive individuals make more effort in activating temporal regions for memory updating. Across theta, upper alpha and gamma frequencybands, good learners had greater fronto-parietal coherences than bad learners, andmonetary loss displayed greater coherences than monetary gain. This indicates a leading role of a fronto-parietal network in outcome processing for memory consolidation and learning. Finally, good learner/high attentional impulsivity subjects, as compared to the other groups, had the highest enhancement of theta, upper alpha, and gamma coherences at far distant cortical regions for monetary loss. This finding outlines the importance of punishment signals in the learning process and suggests that individual differences in attentional impulsivity play an important role in learning ability.
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