Abstract
Post-error slowing (PES) is an error recovery strategy that contributes to action control, and occurs after errors in order to prevent future behavioral flaws. Error recovery often malfunctions in clinical populations, but the relationship between behavioral traits and recovery from error is unclear in healthy populations. The present study investigated the relationship between impulsivity and error recovery by simulating a speeded response situation using a Go/No-go paradigm that forced the participants to constantly make accelerated responses prior to stimuli disappearance (stimulus duration: 250 ms). Neural correlates of post-error processing were examined using event-related potentials (ERPs). Impulsivity traits were measured with self-report questionnaires (BIS-11, BIS/BAS). Behavioral results demonstrated that the commission error for No-go trials was 15%, but PES did not take place immediately. Delayed PES was negatively correlated with error rates and impulsivity traits, showing that response slowing was associated with reduced error rates and changed with impulsivity. Response-locked error ERPs were clearly observed for the error trials. Contrary to previous studies, error ERPs were not significantly related to PES. Stimulus-locked N2 was negatively correlated with PES and positively correlated with impulsivity traits at the second post-error Go trial: larger N2 activity was associated with greater PES and less impulsivity. In summary, under constant speeded conditions, error monitoring was dissociated from post-error action control, and PES did not occur quickly. Furthermore, PES and its neural correlate (N2) were modulated by impulsivity traits. These findings suggest that there may be clinical and practical efficacy of maintaining cognitive control of actions during error recovery under common daily environments that frequently evoke impulsive behaviors.
Highlights
Recovery from error is a self-regulated adjustment in order to prevent future behavioral flaws, which is an adaptive function in normal healthy (NH) individuals
The present speeded behavioral setting has revealed that individual differences in impulsivity traits are associated with changes in posterror monitoring and its related neural activities
We have suggested that post-error speeding resulted from non regulatory states resulting from affective excitement or preoccupation evoked by errors
Summary
Recovery from error is a self-regulated adjustment in order to prevent future behavioral flaws, which is an adaptive function in normal healthy (NH) individuals. Post-error slowing (PES) is a well-documented action control process immediately after errors (Rabbitt, 1966; Danielmeier and Ullsperger, 2011). PES is a phenomenon where response speed is prolonged after error trials, in order to remedy future errors, and it has been observed in various experimental settings such as those of Flankers (Debener et al, 2005; Cavanagh et al, 2009; Eichele et al, 2010), Simon (King et al, 2010; Danielmeier et al, 2011; Cavanagh et al, 2014), Stopsignal (Li et al, 2008a,b; Lawrence et al, 2009; Chang et al, 2014), and Stroop (Gehring and Fencsik, 2001). PES is associated with several background mechanisms, such as cognitive control, which increases time available to regulate post-error actions (MacDonald et al, 2000; Botvinick et al, 2001; Ridderinkhof et al, 2004), and attentional or affective orienting to rare erroneous events (Hajcak et al, 2003; Notebaert et al, 2009; Wessel et al, 2011).
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