2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase

Using Brain Signals to Understand How Feedback Shapes Learning

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-24-2026

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Mariane Bacelar

Abstract

Motor skills are essential for interacting with the world and understanding how motor skills are learned can improve coaching, practice efficiencies and training outcomes. Motor learning relies on practice and feedback, as feedback guides behavioral adjustments that support skill acquisition. More specifically, positive feedback reinforces successful behaviors through reinforcement learning. One way to study feedback processing is by using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity that is time locked to feedback presentation. By recording EEG during skill acquisition, we can extract the Reward Positivity (RewP), a positive-going deflection in the EEG waveform in the 230-350ms window after feedback presentation that reflects reward prediction errors (RPE), which is the difference between expected and actual reward. Since RPEs mediate motor adjustments following feedback stimuli, the RewP provides information on how the brain processes that feedback for subsequent behavioral adaptation. In this work, we review how the RewP has been used to understand skill acquisition and present opportunities for future research in this area.

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