Anxiety has profound influences on a wide range of cognitive processes, including action monitoring. Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies have shown that anxiety can boost early error detection mechanisms, as reflected by an enhanced error-related negativity (ERN) following errors in high-anxious, as compared with low-anxious, participants. This observation is consistent with the assumption of a gain control mechanism exerted by anxiety onto error-related brain responses within the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, whether anxiety simply enhances or, rather, alters early error detection mechanisms remains unsolved. In this study, we compared the performance of low- versus high-trait-anxious participants during a go/no-go task while high-density EEG was recorded. The two groups showed comparable behavioral performance, although levels of state anxiety increased following the task for high-anxious participants only. ERP results confirmed that the ERN/Ne to errors was enhanced for high-anxious, relative to low-anxious, participants. However, complementary topographic analyses revealed that the scalp map of the ERN/Ne was not identical between the two groups, suggesting that anxiety did not merely increase early error detection mechanisms, but also led to a qualitative change in the early appraisal of errors. Inverse solution results confirmed a shift within the ACC for the localization of neural generators underlying the ERN/Ne scalp map in high-anxious participants, corroborating the assumption of an early effect of anxiety on early error-monitoring functions. These results shed new light on the dynamic interplay between anxiety and error-monitoring functions in the human brain

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The accuracy of actions is swiftly determined through specific monitoring brain systems. Event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that error commission is associated with the generation of the error-related negativity (ERN/Ne), while correct actions with the correct-related negativity (CRN). Although the exact functional meaning of the ERN/Ne (and CRN) component remains debated, some authors have suggested that it reflects the processing of the emotional significance of actions. However, no study to date has directly linked amplitude changes at the level of the ERN/Ne-CRN to the affective processing of actions. In order to decode the emotional valence of actions performed during a Go/noGo task, we used an evaluative priming method in this study. After each action following the Go/noGo stimulus, participants had to categorize an evaluative word as either positive or negative. Behavioral results showed that response errors (i.e., False Alarms -FAs) performed during the Go/noGo task led to a faster categorization of negative than positive words.Remarkably, this evaluative priming effect was related to the magnitude of the ERN/Ne component generated during the Go/noGo task. Moreover, ERP results showed that the processing of evaluative words following FAs was influenced early on after word onset (early posterior negativity-EPN effect), while it was influenced later following correct as well as incorrect actions (late positive potential-LPP effect). Altogether, these ERP results suggest that the action-related ERN-CRN component encodes the perceived emotional significance of actions, such that early stages of evaluative word processing following these actions are influenced by this automatic process.3

Thirty low and 30 high anxious participants performed a speeded Go/noGo task during which they had to rely on evaluative feedback to infer whether their actions were timely (correct) or not. We focused on FRN, an ERP component that is sensitive to the valence of feedback.Depending on the context, neutral faces served either as positive or negative feedback.Whereas the FRN of low anxious individuals did discriminate between neutral faces when used either as positive or negative feedback, the FRN of high anxious individuals did not.However, before the FRN, we also found evidence for a differential perceptual effect at the level of the N170 face-specific component between the two feedback conditions, equally so in low and high anxious individuals. These results suggest that anxiety disrupts selectively the evaluative component of performance monitoring, which presumably allows to ascribe a given value (either positive or negative) to actions.Keywords: Anxiety, ERP, FRN, N170, attribution 3 Performance monitoring and anxiety Anxiety disrupts selectively the evaluative component of performance monitoring: An ERP study Depending on the situation and circumstances, the control of behavior is based on the monitoring of either internal or external signals, or sometimes a combination of both. For example, the adequacy of a given action in response to a familiar stimulus may be determined based on an internal representation allowing to compare the discrepancy between the actual and expected or desired action, with a swift detection of any divergence between the two (Gehring et al., 1993). However, in many situations, performance monitoring cannot be achieved solely based on the processing of internal signals, but the processing of new external feedback information in the environment is required to establish whether the current action is appropriate (e.g., timely, correct) or not. Hence, the processing of feedback information available in the environment often indicates the appropriateness of certain actions and in turn allows to correct or adjust behavior if required, eventually leading to learning and preventing errors from recurring in the future (Holroyd & Coles, 2002;Rabbitt, 1966).Several ERP studies looking at outcome evaluation processes based on external feedback have described an ERP component, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) that is selectively associated with the processing of the valence or motivational significance of the feedback (Gehring & Willoughby, 2002;Holroyd & Coles, 2002;Miltner et al., 1997). The FRN is a negative component peaking at fronto-central electrodes roughly 250-300 ms after presentation of relevant feedback information. Usually, the FRN was found to be larger after negative feedback on task performance, e.g., the presentation of an evaluation signal indicating error commission or monetary loss, compared to positive feedback, e.g., the presentation of an evaluation signal indicating correct performance or monetary reward anxiety, which is usually related to depression (Beck et...

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