Abstract& Our ability to detect and correct errors is essential for our adaptive behavior. The conflict-loop theory states that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a key role in detecting the need to increase control through conflict monitoring. Such monitoring is assumed to manifest itself in an electroencephalographic (EEG) component, the ''error negativity'' (N e or ''error-related negativity'' [ERN]). We have directly tested the hypothesis that the ACC monitors conflict through simulation and experimental studies. Both the simulated and EEG traces were sorted, on a trial-by-trial basis, as a function of the degree of conflict, measured as the temporal overlap between incorrect and correct response activations. The simulations clearly show that conflict increases as temporal overlap between response activation increases, whereas the experimental results demonstrate that the amplitude of the N e decreases as temporal overlap increases, suggesting that the ACC does not monitor conflict. At a functional level, the results show that the duration of the N e depends on the time needed to correct (partial) errors, revealing an ''on-line'' modulation of control on a very short time scale. &
In a choice reaction time (RT) task, electromyographic (EMG) recordings allowed us to fractionate RT into two subcomponents, namely premotor time and motor time. This has been done for correct trials and errors. The analysis of the EMG burst and motor time (between EMG onset and overt response) showed that the EMG burst amplitude was reduced and the motor time was longer for errors than for correct responses. In the same way as posterror slowing on the RT was interpreted as revealing between-trials changes in executive control, the present data provide direct evidence for an on-line, within-trial, executive control.
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