2.6.3. Post hoc analyses of age and condition differences in brainbehavior
correlations
To examine whether patterns of correlations differed significantly
between learning conditions and between age groups, we
combined the correlations into composite measures and statistically
tested network-level differences. These analyses were conjectured
post hoc, after having observed the outcomes of the
preceding analyses, to test more detailed hypotheses emanating
from the data patterns. Specifically, we investigated (1) whether in
the young adults, the network of clusters correlating negatively
with learning behavior in the easy condition was significantly
different from the network correlating positively with learning
behavior in the difficult condition, (2) whether the networks in
older adults that correlated positively with learning in the 2
learning conditions were significantly different, and (3) whether
the networks in young and older adults that correlated positively
with learning in the difficult condition were significantly different.