Abstract
BackgroundRecent studies employing stimulus-response compatibility tasks suggest that an increase in the amplitude of the positive deflection of the response-locked event-related potential (ERP) foreshadows errors on forthcoming trials. However, no studies have tested the generalizability of error-foreshadowing positivity to tasks without stimulus-response interference.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe present study adopted an alternating-response task, in which the participants responded to the pointing direction of an arrowhead (up or down). Although the arrowhead direction alternated for the majority of trials (95%), occasionally this pattern was broken by a repeated stimulus, termed a lure trial. We compared the matched-reaction-time correct-preceding ERP with the error-preceding ERP on lure-preceding trials. There was no evidence that errors are foreshadowed by the increase of a positive electroencephalogram (EEG) deflection. To the contrary, analyses of ERPs time-locked to electromyogram (EMG) onset on the five consecutive lure-preceding trials showed larger positive deflections on correct-preceding than error-preceding trials. The post-response negativity did not differ between correct-preceding and error-preceding trials.Conclusions/SignificanceThese results suggest that in minimal conflict tasks a decreased positivity may foreshadow incorrect performance several trials prior to the error, possibly reflecting the waning of task-related efforts. Therefore, error-foreshadowing brain signals may be task-specific.
Highlights
If a specific brain activity foreshadows performance accuracy, it may be a useful signal to prevent individuals from making mistakes in various kinds of tasks
The ERN has a frontocentral distribution, presumably reflecting neural activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and is thought by some researchers to be functionally related to error-detection [5,6] or by others to be related to detection of response conflicts [7], arising from the crosstalk interference that occurs when two response activations overlap during the parallel processing of incongruent stimuli [8]
We investigated brain activity on trials preceding correct and erroneous responses in a task with at most marginal response-conflict on these preceding trials
Summary
If a specific brain activity foreshadows performance accuracy, it may be a useful signal to prevent individuals from making mistakes in various kinds of tasks. Recent studies have suggested that event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with performance monitoring can foreshadow erroneous responses in cognitive conflict tasks, as explained below. Performance monitoring is seen to be reflected in a negative component that can be elicited by incorrect responses (errors, the error-related negativity: ERN), as well as correct responses (the correct-response negativity: CRN) [3]. The ERN has a frontocentral distribution, presumably reflecting neural activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and is thought by some researchers to be functionally related to error-detection [5,6] or by others to be related to detection of response conflicts [7], arising from the crosstalk interference that occurs when two response activations overlap during the parallel processing of incongruent stimuli [8]. Recent studies employing stimulus-response compatibility tasks suggest that an increase in the amplitude of the positive deflection of the response-locked event-related potential (ERP) foreshadows errors on forthcoming trials. No studies have tested the generalizability of error-foreshadowing positivity to tasks without stimulus-response interference
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