A study suggests that, children learn from mistakes only after the age of 12!!!

[Abbas Bubakar El-ta'alu]

Although the study was carried out bearing in mind American children, I wonder; how would such a finding be reliable with regards our Nigerian ones?
          Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds and adults. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback ('Well done!'), whereas negative feedback ('Got it wrong this time') scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring.  Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes.  Adults do the same, but more efficiently.

Brain areas for cognitive control

          The switch in learning strategy has been demonstrated in behavioural research, which shows that eight-year-olds respond disproportionately inaccurately to negative feedback. But the switch can also be seen in the brain, as developmental psychologist Dr Eveline Crone and her colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab discovered using fMRI research.  The difference can be observed particularly in the areas of the brain responsible for cognitive control. These areas are located in the cerebral cortex.

Opposite case

          In children of eight and nine, these areas of the brain react strongly to positive feedback and scarcely respond at all to negative feedback.  But in children of 12 and 13, and also in adults, the opposite is the case.  Their 'control centres' in the brain are more strongly activated by negative feedback and much less by positive feedback.

Is it experience?

          Is that difference between eight- and twelve-year-olds the result of experience, or does it have to do with the way the brain develops?  As yet, nobody has the answer.  'This kind of brain research has only been possible for the last ten years or so. According to this study, there are a lot more questions which have to be answered. But it is probably a combination of the brain maturing and experience.'

Brain area for positive feedback

          There is also an area of the brain that responds strongly to positive feedback: the basal ganglia, just outside the cerebral cortex.  The activity of this area of the brain does not change.  It remains active in all age groups: in adults, but also in children, both eight-year-olds and twelve-year-olds.

Reference:
Anna C. K. van Duijvenvoorde, Kiki Zanolie, Serge A. R. B. Rombouts, Maartje E. J. Raijmakers, and Eveline A. Crone. Evaluating the Negative or Valuing the Positive? Neural Mechanisms Supporting Feedback-Based Learning across Development. The Journal of Neuroscience, 17 September 2008