Temporospatial dissociation of Pe subcomponents for perceived and unperceived errors

Tanja Endrass,Julia Klawohn,Norbert Kathmann,Julia Preuss

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00178

Abstract

Previous research on performance monitoring revealed that errors are followed by an initial fronto-central negative deflection (error-related negativity, ERN or Ne) and a subsequent centro-parietal positivity (error positivity, Pe). It has been shown that error awareness mainly influences the Pe, whereas the ERN seems unaffected by conscious awareness of an error. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relation of ERN and Pe to error awareness in a visual size discrimination task in which errors are not elicited by impulsive responding but by perceptual difficulty. Further, we applied a temporospatial principal component analysis (PCA) to examine whether the temporospatial subcomponents of the Pe would differentially relate to error awareness. Event-related potential (ERP) results were in accordance with earlier studies: a significant error awareness effect was found for the Pe, but not for the ERN. Interestingly, a modulation with error perception on correct trials was found: correct responses considered as incorrect had larger correct-related negativity (CRN) and lager Pe amplitudes than correct responses considered as correct. The PCA yielded two relevant spatial factors accounting for the Pe (latency 300 ms). A temporospatial factor characterized by a centro-parietal positivity varied significantly with error awareness. Of the two temporospatial factors corresponding to ERN and CRN, one factor with central topography varied with response correctness and subjective error perception on correct responses. The PCA results indicate that the error awareness effect is specifically related to the centro-parietal subcomponent of the Pe. Since this component has also been shown to be related to the importance of an error, the present variation with error awareness indicates that this component is sensitive to the salience of an error and that salience secondarily may trigger error awareness.

Highlights

Performance monitoring is an essential prerequisite for adaptive behavior and implements adjustment processes, such as error detection and subsequent post-error slowing
Previous research on performance monitoring revealed that errors are followed by an initial fronto-central negative deflection and a subsequent centro-parietal positivity
We applied a temporospatial principal component analysis (PCA) to examine whether the temporospatial subcomponents of the Pe would differentially relate to error awareness

Summary

Introduction

Performance monitoring is an essential prerequisite for adaptive behavior and implements adjustment processes, such as error detection and subsequent post-error slowing. Over the past years numerous psychophysiological and neuroimaging studies investigated the neural basis of performance monitoring and error processing. The ERN is followed by the error positivity (Pe), a centro-parietal positive deflection that peaks between 200 and 400 ms after response onset (Falkenstein et al, 1991, 2000; Overbeek et al, 2005). These components are considered to indicate error-related brain activity but it is not fully clear whether they reflect functionally dissociate aspects of error processing. While source localization studies suggest that the ERN is generated in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), or more precisely, Hyphenation: gene-rated in the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC, Dehaene et al, 1994; Van Veen and Carter, 2002; Debener et al, 2005), the source of the Pe is more difficult to determine, and heterogeneous results were obtained (Herrmann et al, 2004; O’Connell et al, 2007; Vocat et al, 2008)

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