Changing your mind before it is too late: The electrophysiological correlates of online error correction during response selection

Abstract

Inhibiting actions when they are no longer appropriate is essential for adaptive goal-directed behavior.In this study, we used high-density EEG and a standard flanker task to explore the spatio-temporal dynamics of cognitive control and inhibitory mechanisms aimed to prevent the commission of errors.By recording hand-related EMG activity, we could disentangle successful from unsuccessful inhibition attempts. Our results confirm that (i) the latency of the ERN (or Ne) component is too late to be associated with these online inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) instead, a frontal slow negative component with an earlier time-course was associated with the implementation of online inhibition. These findings are consistent with single-cell recordings in monkeys showing that the supplementary motor area (SMA)provides cognitive control signals to the primary motor cortex to exert online inhibition and in turn rectify the course of erroneous actions.

Reduced premovement positivity during the stimulus‐response interval precedes errors: Using single‐trial and regression ERPs to understand performance deficits in ADHD

“…Consistent with previous ERP studies using flanker tasks (see review by Folstein & Van Petten, ), responses were recorded with button presses rather than electromyograms (EMGs), precluding investigation of dynamics accompanying central motor conductance timing (CMCTs, delays between motor brain potentials and EMG responses) and EMG onset‐to‐button press timing (e.g., “partial errors”; Roger et al, ). While we cannot know how CMCT‐ and EMG‐induced dynamics might influence the latencies of brain potentials in our study, we conjecture that such effects are small (e.g., CMCTs typically range 3 to 5 ms in humans aged > 4 years; Udupa & Chen, ) or relatively constant (i.e., shifting waveforms' latencies by some fixed delay) given the tight succession of EMG and button presses.…”

“…To date, the stimulus‐response interval (SRI) with respect to errors in selective attention speeded motor response tasks remains confounded, such that it is unclear whether error‐related effects during the SRI may be attributable to stimulus‐evoked (perceptual) or response‐preceding (motor) processes. For example, amplitudes of ERP peaks following stimulus presentation have correlated with trial performance in some studies (Perri, Berchicci, Lucci, Spinelli, & Di Russo, ; Perri, Berchicci, Spinelli, & Di Russo, ), as have amplitudes from ERP peaks preceding motor responses in other studies (Bode & Stahl, ; Meckler, Carbonnell, Hasbroucq, Burle, & Vidal, ; Roger, Nunez Castellar, Pourtois, & Fias, ), but whether these separate sets of findings reflect stimulus‐ or response‐related phenomena remains unclear. This is because the standard practice of computing ERPs by averaging voltages across trials time‐locked to either stimulus or response event, without accounting for possible overlap among the two processes (that often occur in rapid succession), suggests that some effect of potentials related to the response are possibly contained in the stimulus‐locked ERP (e.g., Salisbury, Rutherford, Shenton, & McCarley, ) and vice versa.…”

Becoming aware of subliminal responses: An EEG/EMG study on partial error detection and correction in humans

“…In contrast, the latency analyses cluster trials in a different way: Ne elicited by partial errors (both aware and unaware) peaked earlier than correct and erroneous trials. The timing of the Ne is, therefore, independent from error conscious detection, but covaries with correction (Bonini et al, 2014, Roger et al, 2014, see also Fiehler et al, 2005, for comparable results on overt errors). This timing pattern is compatible with the proposition that the Ne may work as an "alarm signal" developing until appropriate remediating action is issued (Burle et al, 2008, Bonini et al, 2014: if correction starts too late, the response cannot be stopped anymore and an error occurs.…”

Reduced Medial Frontal Positivity During the Stimulus-Response Interval Precedes Action Errors and Explains Task Deficits in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…Consistent with previous ERP studies using flanker tasks (see review by Folstein and Van Petten, 2008), responses were recorded with button presses rather than electromyograms (EMGs), precluding investigation of dynamics accompanying central motor conductance timing (CMCTs, delays between motor brain potentials and EMG responses) and EMG onset-to-button press timing (e.g., "partial errors"; Roger et al, 2014). While we cannot know how CMCT-and EMG-induced dynamics might influence the latencies of brain potentials in our study, we conjecture that such effects are small (e.g., CMCTs typically range 3 to 5 milliseconds in humans aged > 4 years; Udupa and Chen, 2013) or relatively constant (i.e., shifting waveforms' latencies by some fixed delay) given the tight succession of EMG and button presses.…”

“…For example, larger positive peaks occurring approximately 300 milliseconds in stimulus-locked ERPs over frontal cortex have correlated with faster motor responses (Makeig et al, 1999;Delorme et al, 2007) and better accuracy (Perri et al, 2014;Perri et al, 2015). Additionally, response-locked ERP amplitudes preceding manual responses have been linked to performance errors (Meckler et al, 2013;Bode and Stahl, 2014;Roger et al, 2014). Yet, error associations during the SRI remain difficult to interpret because stimulus-and response-locked ERPs are often studied separately, and the rapid succession among stimulus and response waveforms suggests "temporal confounding" (Smith and Kutas, 2015a, b), meaning it is unclear whether error-related effects during the SRI should be attributed to stimulus-evoked (perceptual) or response-preceding (motor) processing.…”