The second major research question concerned whether adults differed from periadolescents in ERO responses to auditory stimuli with an active taskA comparison of the number of behavioral responses given in the active task revealed that there were no significant differences between adults and periadolescents. The mean number of responses for the adults was 25.3 ± 0.2 and for the periadolescents was 26.5 ± 0.6 out of a total possible 25 responses. An evaluation of energy values in the human participants using MANOVA revealed a main effect of group (periadolescents vs. adults: F=89.6, df=1,330, p<0.001), and a main effect of tone (frequent vs. infrequent (target): F=7.32, df=1,330, p<0.007). The infrequent (target) tone had a significantly higher overall energy (54.89 ±2.8) than the frequent tone (44.19 ±2.8). Grand means revealed that periadolescents had significantly higher energy (68.28 ± 3.2) than adults (30.8 ± 2.3). ANOVA identified that for the frequently presented tone that periadolescents had significantly higher energy than adults in all electrode locations, for all time frequency ROIs except for theta activity in FZ. (F values range= 7.6-74.7).
