Proactive Processes Research Articles

Tensions of Embedding Reflective Teaching Practices in Teacher Education in Eritrea: A Self-Study on Facilitation Experiences

ABSTRACT This article is a self-study of intentional practices embedded in reflective teaching in a teacher education program in Eritrea. The educator-researcher (author) was concerned with engaging learner-teachers in interactive teaching practices in general and reflective learning practices in particular. By employing self-study methods and tools, the study examines proactive practices and processes in a postgraduate teacher education course. The author implemented facilitation approaches of collaborative reflections, supporting reflective inquiry on learning practices, explicit modelling, and consistent feedback. Framed within the conceptual notion of the tension of practices, the study explores the author’s facilitation experiences during a 16-week or semester-long course. The findings revealed tensions in attending to and improving learner-teachers’ educational needs, synchronizing verbal and written reflective competencies, and language issues in learning to be more thoughtful. The self-study provides practical perspectives on how teacher educators may learn to approach their work while supporting reflective practices in challenging teacher education contexts and beyond.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Proactive Control and Binding Processes during Task Switching in Tourette Syndrome.

The occurrence of tics in Tourette syndrome (TS) has often been linked to impaired cognitive control, but empirical findings are still inconclusive. A recent view proposes that tics may be the result of an abnormally strong interrelation between perceptual processes and motor actions, commonly referred to as perception-action binding. The general aim of the present study was to examine proactive control and binding effects in the context of task switching in adult human patients with TS and matched healthy controls. A cued task switching paradigm was employed in 24 patients (18 male, 6 female) and 25 controls while recording electroencephalography (EEG). Residue iteration decomposition (RIDE) was applied to analyze cue-locked proactive cognitive control and target-locked binding processes. Behavioral task switching performance was unaltered in patients with TS. A cue-locked parietal switch positivity, reflecting proactive control processes involved in the reconfiguration of the new task did not differ between groups. Importantly, target-locked fronto-central (N2) and parietal (P3) modulations, reflecting binding processes between perception and action, differed between groups. Underlying neurophysiological processes were best depicted after temporal decomposition of the EEG signal. The present results argue for unaltered proactive control but altered perception-action binding processes in the context of task switching, supporting the view that the integration of perception and action is processed differently in patients TS. Future studies should further investigate the specific conditions under which binding may be altered in TS and the influence of top-down processes, such as proactive control, on bindings.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Different Proactive Controls during Response Competition and Inhibition Tasks

The present study aims to investigate the behavioral outcomes and the antecedent brain dynamics during the preparation of tasks in which the discrimination is either about the choice (choice response task; CRT) or the action (Go/No-go), and in a task not requiring discrimination (simple response task; SRT). Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the mean amplitude over prefrontal, central, and parietal-occipital sites was analyzed in 20 young healthy participants in a time frame before stimulus presentation to assess cognitive, motor, and visual readiness, respectively. Behaviorally, participants were faster and more accurate in the SRT than in the CRT and the Go/No-go. At the electrophysiological level, the proactive cognitive and motor ERP components were larger in the CRT and the Go/No-go than the SRT, but the largest amplitude emerged in the Go/No-go. Further, the amplitude over parieto-occipital leads was enhanced in the SRT. The strongest intensity of the frontal negative expectancy wave over prefrontal leads in the Go/No-go task could be attributed to the largest uncertainty about the target presentation and subsequent motor response selection and execution. The enhanced sensory readiness in the SRT can be related to either an increased visual readiness associated with task requirements or a reduced overlap with proactive processing on the scalp.

Sex Differences in Cognitive-Motor Dual-Task Training Effects and in Brain Processing of Semi-Elite Basketball Players.

In the current study, we aimed at evaluating the possible sex differences in cognitive-motor dual-task training (CMDT) effects on the sport and cognitive performance of semi-elite basketball athletes. Moreover, we investigated the CMDT effects on proactive brain processing using event-related potential (ERP) analysis. Fifty-two young basketball athletes (age 16.3 years) were randomly assigned into an experimental (Exp) group performing the CMDT, and a control (Con) group executing standard motor training. Before and after a 5-week training intervention, participants' motor performance was evaluated using dribbling tests. Cognitive performance was assessed by measuring response time and accuracy in a discrimination response task (DRT). Brain activity related to motor and cognitive preparation was measured through the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) and the prefrontal negativity (pN) ERP components. The CMDT involved the simultaneous execution of dribbling exercises and cognitive tasks which were realized using interactive technologies on the court. Results showed that both groups had some enhancements from pre- to post-tests, but only the Exp group enhanced in the dribbling exercise. In the DRT after the CMDT, females performed faster than males in the Exp group. All groups, except for the Con group of males, performed the DRT more accurately after the training. According to the ERP results, in the Exp group of males and in Exp and Con group of females, we found an increase in pN amplitude (associated with better accuracy); in the Exp group of females and in Exp and Con group of males, we found an increase in BP (associated with better response time). In conclusion, the present study endorsed the efficacy of the proposed CMDT protocol on both the sport and cognitive performance of semi-elite basketball players and showed that the neural basis of these benefits may be interpreted as sex-related compensatory effects.

Poorer sleep health is associated with altered brain activation during cognitive control processing in healthy adults.

This study investigated how proactive and reactive cognitive control processing in the brain was associated with habitual sleep health. BOLD fMRI data were acquired from 81 healthy adults with normal sleep (41 females, age 20.96-39.58years) during a test of cognitive control (Not-X-CPT). Sleep health was assessed in the week before MRI scanning, using both objective (actigraphy) and self-report measures. Multiple measures indicating poorer sleep health-including later/more variable sleep timing, later chronotype preference, more insomnia symptoms, and lower sleep efficiency-were associated with stronger and more widespread BOLD activations in fronto-parietal and subcortical brain regions during cognitive control processing (adjusted for age, sex, education, and fMRI task performance). Most associations were found for reactive cognitive control activation, indicating that poorer sleep health is linked to a "hyper-reactive" brain state. Analysis of time-on-task effects showed that, with longer time on task, poorer sleep health was predominantly associated with increased proactive cognitive control activation, indicating recruitment of additional neural resources over time. Finally, shorter objective sleep duration was associated with lower BOLD activation with time on task and poorer task performance. In conclusion, even in "normal sleepers," relatively poorer sleep health is associated with altered cognitive control processing, possibly reflecting compensatory mechanisms and/or inefficient neural processing.

Investigating the involvement of cognitive control processes in innovative and adaptive creativity and their age-related changes.

Based on the two-factor model of creativity, two distinct types of creative problem solving can be differentiated: innovative ("do things differently") and adaptive ("do things better"). Flexible cognitive control is a crucial concept in connection with both general and specific styles of creativity: innovative problem-solving benefits from broader attention and flexible mental set shifting; while adaptive creativity relies on focused attention and persistent goal-oriented processes. We applied an informatively cued task-switching paradigm which is suitable for measuring different cognitive control processes and mechanisms like proactive and reactive control. We hypothesized that adaptive creativity is connected to effective proactive control processes, while innovative creativity is based on reactive task-execution. As we have found no previous evidence how age-related changes in cognitive control affects creative cognition; we also examined the effect of healthy aging on different problem-solving styles in an explorative way. Our participants, 37 younger (18-30 years) and 37 older (60-75 years) adults, were divided into innovative and adaptive creative groups according to the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking's Figural Subtest (Hungarian version). Our results showed that among younger adults the adaptively creative group had larger cue-locked CNV component (effective preparatory activity connected to proactive control), while the innovatively creative group had a larger target-locked P3b component (effective target evaluation and categorization in line with reactive control) which supports a functional difference in the two creative styles. By contrast, in older adults innovative problem-solving showed larger mixing costs (less effective maintenance and selection of task sets), and the lack of trial type effect on target-locked N2b (target-induced goal reactivation and less effective conflict resolution); while adaptive problem-solving caused them to make fewer errors (accuracy-oriented behavior). All in all, innovative and adaptive creativity is based on distinct cognitive control mechanisms in both age-groups, but their processing level is affected by age-related changes.

Opportunities for improving the processes of preparing legal acts by public authorities based on the process mining

The processes of creating legal acts must meet such criteria as transparency, controllability, compliance with regulations. However, currently the procedures are extremely bureaucratic, pre-planned and go through many instances during the preparation, approval and signing. Of course, most of these processes are necessary, time-tested and legally fixed. At the same time, there are operations that require optimisation, including due to their automation or robotisation. To identify them and ensure that the procedure meet the changing needs of the state, it is important to create conditions for continuous monitoring, timely identification and operational adaptation and optimisation of the rule-making activities of the authorities. In this regard, the issue of applying contemporary technologies and approaches to analysis and the formation of recommendations for improving proactive processes seems extremely relevant. The purpose of this study is to examine the currend specifics of the preparation of the legal acts by the federal executive authorities and to identify areas for this normative documents’ improvement based on the process mining. The research methods used were a literature review and the Russian legal framework analysis, a questionnaire survey and process modelling. The authors analyse how draft legal documents (government and presidential acts, federal laws) are developed in the Russian Federation. They demonstrate the need for a transition to smart management. Its principles will ensure efficiency and flexibility in the preparation of normative legal acts. The metrics for monitoring and controlling the execution of the relevant instructions are formulated and the prospects for the development of their information support as a result of the implementation of process mining technologies are highlighted.

Alcohol-induced deficits in reactive control of response selection and inhibition are counteracted by a seemingly paradox increase in proactive control

High-dose alcohol intoxication reduces cognitive control, including inhibition. Although inhibition deficits may contribute to the behavioral deficits commonly observed in alcohol use disorder (AUD), many questions about potentially modulating factors have remained unanswered. We examined the effects of experimentally induced high-dose alcohol intoxication (~ 1.1 ‰) on the interplay between controlled vs. automatic response selection and inhibition in healthy young men. A holistic EEG-based theta activity analysis that considered both reactive control during task performance and preceding proactive control processes was run. It revealed a previously unknown seesaw relationship, with decreased reactive control, but paradoxically increased proactive control. Most importantly, alcohol-induced increases in proactive occipital theta band power were associated with reductions in negative alcohol effects on reactive control processes associated with decreased activity in the SMA and medial frontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate that research should not solely focus on immediate effects during task performance. Aside from differential neurobiochemical and neuroanatomical effects of alcohol, it is also conceivable that proactive control may have been recruited in a (secondary) response to compensate for alcohol-induced impairments in reactive control. Against this background, it could be promising to investigate changes in such compensatory mechanisms in pronounced alcohol-associated inhibition deficits, like in AUD patients.

Micro-electronic Chips shortages and obsolescence: an empirical study

Obsolescence and shortages affect almost all value chains. The electronics industry, in particular the manufacturers of electronic and IT devices, are well aware of them. They have been organizing themselves since the 1980s. However, repeated crises are generating unprecedented waiting and stock-out phenomena.SNCF Réseau sets up and maintains signaling installations for railway tracks. The equipment used is long-lived, ageing and exposed to environmental aggression. Customers (i.e. freight or passenger transporters) must be offered a very high level of operational availability of track. However, in-service support becomes extremely challenging as soon as the equipment contains obsolete or obsolescent components, leading to possible downtime. To improve the efficiency of obsolescence and shortages management, SNCF Réseau wishes to reinforce its internal processes. A partnership through an empirical research project was then carried out in order to (1) Discover the main causes of obsolescence cases and shortages allowing to develop proactive management processes, (2) Find out the duration of the commercial life of the main target components, and (3) Find out the time between the announcement of the manufacturing discontinuance and the date of the last buy order; i.e. LBO for some classes of electronic components. The paper presents the results of this research made for 3 global suppliers. The project group, made up of ISAE-Supméca engineering students and their industrial and academic tutors, studied about 3000 components. The study shows, among other issues, that: (i) obsolescence and shortage information is often incompletely explicit, (ii) obsolescence cases are due to a small number of main causes, (iii) data processing does not always enable statistical models to be obtained, and (iv) customers have to use huge efforts to find out the right data about the obsolescence cases. The proactive management should be therefore agile to deal with these uncertainties. The paper ends by exposing some conclusions and describing the future research works the authors follow.

Diverse research teams: A framework for research review

Indigenous groups voices have often been missing from the marketing research collegiate. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of the land now known as Australia, for example, are among the most researched peoples in the world (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003), yet are underrepresented among research practitioners. The present underrepresentation among practitioners is only slowly, and occasionally haphazardly, being addressed by the growing number of more junior Indigenous researchers entering the field. Until greater representation among senior researchers is achieved, research teams are likely to include a mixture of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. Such teams must therefore address a unique combination of power imbalance and minority inclusion in how they work. This need for inclusion can become more challenging for research teams when the research topic addresses issues impacting Indigenous peoples. And while numerous ethical and research guidelines exist for how researchers work with participants who are members of a minority group and are likely to have less power, there are few frameworks addressing how such challenges should be managed for the researchers within a research team. In this paper, we use an action research method to critically reflect on how to manage research teams that include more junior Indigenous researchers whose voices are vital to the research project. Reflexive and proactive processes were developed to ensure a culture of reflection both regarding interactions within the research team and in the project. To structure and share these reflections, the team developed and enunciated a fit-for-purpose framework. This framework was informed by the work of Narungga Professor Rigney (1999) that lists foundational Indigenist research methods. The framework also draws on the layers of reflexivity proposed by Nicholls (2009) and insider/outsider group theory previously advocated for (Ameka, 2018).

Effect of different sport environments on proactive and reactive motor inhibition: A study on open- and closed-skilled athletes via mouse-tracking procedure.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of different sport environments (open-and closed-skill sports) on proactive and reactive inhibitory processes as two distinct components of motor inhibition. A mouse-tracking procedure was employed to compare behavioral performance among three groups of participants (tennis players, swimmers and non-athletes) in non-sport-specific cued Go/No-Go (GNG) and Stop Signal Task (SST), which mainly engage proactive and reactive inhibitory control, respectively. Reaction times (RTs), inhibitory failures, and Stop Signal Reaction Times (SSRTs) were measured. To investigate dynamic aspects of inhibitory control, movement trajectories classified as one-shot (absence of trajectory alteration reflected in a steep slope) or non-one-shot (non-linear/multipeaked trajectory, with one or multiple corrections) were analyzed and compared among groups. Results showed no group differences in RTs in Go/No-Go and Stop conditions. SSRTs were significant shorter for the athletes than non-athletes in SST, but no differences emerged for inhibitory failures in cued GNG. During inhibitory failures athletes showed higher proportion of non-one-shot movements than non-athletes. Higher proportion of non-one-shot profiles was observed in cued GNG compared to SST. Finally, no differences between open-and closed-skilled athletes were found in both tasks. Our findings suggest that both proactive and reactive inhibitory controls do benefit from sport practice, but open-and closed-skill sports do not differ in influencing inhibitory processes. Movement profile analysis could be a promising, complementary behavioral analysis to integrate for more fine-grained evaluation and differentiation of inhibitory motor control in athletes, specifically when using GNG tasks.

Identity Formation, Body Image, and Body-Related Symptoms: Developmental Trajectories and Associations Throughout Adolescence.

Emerging evidence highlights the intricate link between identity and one's body, however, integrative longitudinal research on this identity-body interplay is lacking. The current study used three-wave longitudinal data (Time 1: N = 403; 52.1% female; Mage = 14.85, SD = 0.89, range = 13-19 years) spanning two years (2019-2021; T1 and T2 being pre-pandemic, T3 peri-pandemic) to identify identity trajectory classes and examine their co-development with negative and positive body image and various body-related variables (i.e., sociocultural pressures, internalization of appearance ideals, self-objectification, appearance comparison, and eating disorder symptoms). First, four identity classes emerged using latent class growth analysis (achievement, moratorium, carefree diffusion, and troubled diffusion). Second, using multigroup latent growth curve modeling, adolescents in less adaptive identity trajectory classes (i.e., engaging less in pro-active processes and more in ruminative processes) displayed higher levels of negative body image and body-related symptoms. The current study testified to the clinically meaningful associations linking identity formation to adolescents' body image and other body-related symptoms.

A Novel Approach Based on Machine Learning and Public Engagement to Predict Water-Scarcity Risk in Urban Areas

Climate change, population growth and urban sprawl have put a strain on water supplies across the world, making it difficult to meet water demand, especially in city regions where more than half of the world’s population now reside. Due to the complex urban fabric, conventional techniques should be developed to diagnose water shortage risk (WSR) by engaging crowdsourcing. This study aims to develop a novel approach based on public participation (PP) with a geographic information system coupled with machine learning (ML) in the urban water domain. The approach was used to detect (WSR) in two ways, namely, prediction using ML models directly and using the weighted linear combination (WLC) function in GIS. Five types of ML algorithm, namely, support vector machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron, K-nearest neighbour, random forest and naïve Bayes, were incorporated for this purpose. The Shapley additive explanation model was added to analyse the results. The Water Evolution and Planning system was also used to predict unmet water demand as a relevant criterion, which was aggregated with other criteria. The five algorithms that were used in this work indicated that diagnosing WSR using PP achieved good-to-perfect accuracy. In addition, the findings of the prediction process achieved high accuracy in the two proposed techniques. However, the weights of relevant criteria that were extracted by SVM achieved higher accuracy than the weights of the other four models. Furthermore, the average weights of the five models that were applied in the WLC technique increased the prediction accuracy of WSR. Although the uncertainty ratio was associated with the results, the novel approach interpreted the results clearly, supporting decision makers in the proactive exploration processes of urban WSR, to choose the appropriate alternatives at the right time.

Quality and team care response to the pandemic stresses in high performing primary care practices: A qualitative study.

To learn how high performing primary care practices organized care for patients with diabetes during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between August 10 and December 10, 2020 with 16 leaders from 11 practices that had top quartile performance measures for diabetes outcomes pre-COVID. Each clinic had completed a similar interview and a survey about the existence of care management systems associated with quality outcomes before the pandemic. Transcript analysis utilized a theoretical thematic analysis at the semantic level. The pandemic disrupted the primary care practices' operations and processes considered important for quality prior to the pandemic, particularly clinic reliance on proactive patient care. Safety concerns resulted from the shift to virtual visits, which produced documentation gaps and led practices to reorder their use of proactive patient care processes. Informal interactions with patients also declined. These practices' challenges were mitigated by technical, informational and operational help from the larger organizations of which they were a part. Care management processes had to accommodate both in-person and virtual visits. These high performing practices demonstrated an ability to adapt their use of proactive patient care processes in pursuing quality outcomes for patients with diabetes during the pandemic. Continued clinic transformation and improvements in quality within primary care depend on the ability to restructure the responsibilities of care team members and their interactions with patients.

Towards Conceptual Clarification of Proactive Inhibitory Control: A Review.

The aim of this selective review paper is to clarify potential confusion when referring to the term proactive inhibitory control. Illustrated by a concise overview of the literature, we propose defining reactive inhibition as the mechanism underlying stopping an action. On a stop trial, the stop signal initiates the stopping process that races against the ongoing action-related process that is triggered by the go signal. Whichever processes finishes first determines the behavioral outcome of the race. That is, stopping is either successful or unsuccessful in that trial. Conversely, we propose using the term proactive inhibition to explicitly indicate preparatory processes engaged to bias the outcome of the race between stopping and going. More specifically, these proactive processes include either pre-amping the reactive inhibition system (biasing the efficiency of the stopping process) or presetting the action system (biasing the efficiency of the go process). We believe that this distinction helps meaningful comparisons between various outcome measures of proactive inhibitory control that are reported in the literature and extends to experimental research paradigms other than the stop task.

Effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference.

Intact executive functions are characterized by flexible adaptation to task requirements, while these effects are reduced in internalizing disorders. Furthermore, as executive functions play an important role in emotion regulation, deficits in executive functions may contribute to symptom generation in psychological disorders through increased emotional interference. Thus, the present study investigated transfer effects of a three-week executive control training on adaptation to task difficulty and emotional interference in healthy participants (n = 24) to further explore the training's suitability for clinical application. To assess the adaptation to task difficulty, the proportion congruency effect on behavioral data (response times, error rates) and ERP measures (N2, CRN) was assessed in a flanker task with varying frequency of incompatible trials (25%, 75%). To quantify emotional interference, flanker stimuli were superimposed on neutral or negative pictures. Replicating previous results, the training increased interference control as indexed by decreased response times and errors rates, increased N2 amplitude and decreased CRN amplitude in incompatible trials after training. Proportion congruency effects were weaker than expected and not affected by the training intervention. The training lead to a shift in the time-point of emotional interference: before training negative pictures lead to a reduction in CRN amplitude, while after training this reduction was observed for the N2. This pattern illustrates that the training leads to a change in task processing mode from predominant response-related cognitive control to predominant stimulus-related cognitive control (N2), indicating a proactive processing mode.

The effect of ageing on between-limb centre of pressure coordination in standing balance: Is there evidence for reactive control challenges among older adults?

Interlimb temporal synchrony and spatial symmetry of centre of pressure (COP) displacements may be vital contributors to standing balance control. In previous work among stroke survivors, low-frequency COP displacements (< 0.4 Hz) were proposed to arise from centre of mass (COM) dynamics, or from proactive exploratory processes. COP displacements among higher frequencies (>0.4 Hz), in contrast, have been attributed to corrective balance responses to internal perturbations. The present study extends this work to explore age-related alterations in such stability control processes during standing balance. The combined COP displacements from both limbs (COPnet) in addition to individual-limb COP timeseries were calculated from synchronous force platform data obtained from 19 younger adults and 19 older adults during a 60 s trial of quiet standing. The discrete wavelet transform was used to decompose the anteroposterior and mediolateral COPnet, in addition to the individual-limb timeseries, into low-frequency and high-frequency bandwidths. Root-mean-squared (RMS) amplitudes of high- and low-frequency COPnet displacements were calculated. The cross-correlation coefficient was used to assess the extent of between-limb temporal synchronization, while the ratio of individual-limb RMS amplitudes was used to assess between-limb spatial symmetry within each high- and low-frequency bandwidth. We observed greater high-frequency anteroposterior COPnet displacements among older adults, without age related differences in the lower frequency bandwidth or in the mediolateral direction. Further, older adults exhibited greater high-frequency anteroposterior between-limb synchronization, without age-related differences in the low frequency bandwidth, or among any of the spatial symmetry variables. The present age-related alterations in COPnet could represent a conservative strategy to ensure stability, whereby age-related challenges in stability maintenance during standing are offset by greater demands on stability control. Further, increased high frequency between-limb temporal synchronization among older adults may suggest a loss of adaptability in balance corrective responses during standing.

CreativeSearch: Proactive design exploration system with Bayesian information gain and information entropy

A spatial designer's search goal is sequentially updated during the spatial design exploration process. The design exploration process requires a proactive process that supports better-informed design decisions and refreshes the search direction to avoid being fixed; however, no study has been conducted to date. This paper describes a framework called CreativeSearch, which provides three types of guidance feedback by analyzing a spatial designer's design process. Particularly, by integrating the Bayesian Information Gain (BIG) framework and information entropy theory, CreativeSearch provides three types of guidance feedback. A user study conducted with 20 spatial designers confirmed that CreativeSearch supported them in exploring creative design ideas by lowering their mental load. Furthermore, CreativeSearch made designers proactive and supported their design decisions. The guidance feedback framework described in this paper is expected to extend the research on proactive and creative design exploration processes.

BABOONS

BABOONS (BlAck BOx Optimization of Natural language data Summaries) optimizes text data summaries for an arbitrary, user-defined utility function. Primarily, it targets scenarios in which utility is evaluated via large language models. Users describe their utility function in natural language or provide a model, trained to score text summaries in a specific domain.BABOONS uses reinforcement learning to explore the space of possible descriptions. In each iteration, BABOONS generates summaries and evaluates their utility. To reduce data processing overheads during summary generation, BABOONS uses a proactive processing strategy that dynamically merges current with likely future queries for efficient processing. Also, BABOONS supports scenario-specific sampling and batch processing strategies. These mechanisms allow to scale processing to large data and item sets. The experiments show that BABOONS scales significantly better than baselines. Also, they show that summaries generated by BABOONS receive higher average grades from users in a large survey.

Early response competition over the motor cortex underlies proactive control of error correction

Response inhibition is a fundamental brain function that must be flexible enough to incorporate proactive goal-directed demands, along with reactive, automatic and well consolidated behaviors. However, whether proactive inhibitory processes can be explained by response competition, rather than by active top-down inhibitory control, remains still unclear. Using a modified version of the Eriksen flanker task, we examined the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates elicited by manipulating the degree of inhibitory control in a task that involved the fast amendment of errors. We observed that restraining or encouraging the correction of errors did not affect the behavioral and neural correlates associated to reactive inhibition. We rather found that an early, sustained and bilateral activation, of both the correct and the incorrect response, was required for an effective proactive inhibitory control. Selective unilateral patterns of response preparation were instead associated with defective response suppression. Our results provide behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of a simultaneous dual pre-activation of two motor commands, likely underlying a global operating mechanism suggesting competition or lateral inhibition to govern the amendment of errors. These findings are consistent with the response inhibitory processes already observed in speed-accuracy tradeoff studies, and hint at a decisive role of early response competition to determine the success of multiple-choice action selection.