Frontal theta band oscillations predict error correction and posterror slowing in typing.

Abstract

Performance errors are associated with robust behavioural and EEG effects. However, there is a debate about the nature of the relationship between these effects and implicit vs. explicit error awareness. Our aim was to study the relationship between error related electrophysiological effects, such as spectral perturbations in fronto-medial theta band oscillations (FMT), and error awareness in typing. Typing has an advantage as an experimental paradigm in that detected errors are quickly and habitually signalled by the participant using backspace, allowing separation of detected from undetected errors without interruption in behaviour. Typing is thought to be controlled hierarchically via inner and outer loops, which rely on different sources for error detection. Touch-typist participants were asked to copy-type 100 sentences as EEG was recorded in the absence of visual feedback. Continuous EEG data were analysed using independent component analysis (ICA). Time-frequency and ERP analyses were applied to emergent independent components. The results show that single-trial FMT parameters and Error Related Negativity (ERN) amplitude predict overt, adaptive post-error actions such as error correction via backspace; and, post-error slowing after errors, reflecting implicit error awareness. In addition, we found that those uncorrected errors which were slowed down the most were also the ones associated with a high level of FMT activity. Our results as a whole show that FMT are related to neural mechanism involved in explicit awareness of errors, and input from inner loop is sufficient for error correction in typing. Public SignificanceWe investigated the patterns of brain activity which precede errors and error-correction during skilled typing. This is interesting because it tests how theories of action and error-monitoring apply in a domain where actions are made extremely rapidly (up to ten keys per second). Electroencephalography (EEG) allows us to identify signature changes which have previously been associated with error-related processes in the brain. We showed that two of these signature patterns, the "error related negativity" (ERN) and "fronto-medial theta band oscillations" (FMT), both predict whether a typist is likely to notice and correct an error they make, as well as predicting how much typing slows down after an uncorrected error. The results support the idea -which has been contested -that the ERN reflects our explicit recognition that we have made a mistake.

Synchronization between Keyboard Typing and Neural Oscillations

“…More importantly, regarding brain activity, recent results suggest that typing has similar neural substrates to cognitive control and error monitoring. Indeed, typing errors are associated with stronger midline frontal theta power (Kalfaoğlu et al, 2018), which is commonly reported in more standard cognitive control tasks (Cavanagh and Frank, 2014;Cohen and van Gaal, 2014).…”

“…Typing speed has been the focus of ample research, notably regarding keyboard design and typing performance (Kinkead, 1975;Soukoreff and Mackenzie, 1995). Performances are usually assessed by investigating the number of words per minute, or through the IKI, with some studies suggesting that typing occurs in the theta frequency range (Yamaguchi et al, 2013;Kalfaoğlu and Stafford, 2014;Kalfaoğlu et al, 2018). In this study, we used two different approaches to investigate rhythmicity in typing: either by focusing on raw IKI, or by calculating their probability density function using KDE.…”

“…Brain oscillations can become entrained and phasealigned to (quasi-)rhythmic stimuli with consequences on cognitive performances (see Hanslmayr et al 2019 for an review on memory), or they can provide a more or less constrained time frame for specific cognitive processes or behavior to occur (Miller et al, 2018;Fiebelkorn and Kastner, 2019;Duprez et al, 2020). The similarities between keyboard typing and cognitive control in terms of topographical theta activity and time-frequency power (Cavanagh and Frank, 2014;Kalfaoğlu et al, 2018) led us to hypothesize the existence of synchronization between midfrontal-theta and typing behavior, and that breakdown in this synchronization would explain typing errors. However, it is important to note that our hypothesis does not presuppose whether brain oscillations would become phase-aligned with typing as a rhythmic sensory information, or whether brain oscillations would cyclically orchestrate processes resulting in rhythmic typing.…”

A critical review of the behavioural, neuroimaging, and electrophysiological studies of co-activation of representations during word production

“…This difference is reflected in the error related negativity (ERN; Falkenstein, Hoormann, Christ, & Hohnsbein, 2000), a fronto-central component around the response initiation with greater negativity for error compared to correct trials (Ganushchak & Schiller, 2008b;Masaki, Tanaka, Takasawa, & Yamazaki, 2001;Stéphanie Riès, Janssen, Dufau, Alario, & Burle, 2011). ERN has also been found in other language production tasks that do not involve picture naming, such as tongue-twisters (Acheson & Hagoort, 2014), SLIP task (Möller, Jansma, Rodriguez-Fornells, & Münte, 2007), copy typing (Kalfaoğlu, Stafford, & Milne, 2018) and phoneme substitution (Trewartha & Phillips, 2013).…”

Synchronization between keyboard typing and neural oscillations

“…Typing speed has been the focus of ample research, notably regarding keyboard design and typing performance (Kinkead, 1975;Soukoreff and Mackenzie, 1995). Performances are usually assessed by investigating the number of words per minute, or through the IKI, with some studies suggesting that typing occurs in the theta frequency range (Yamaguchi et al, 2013;Kalfaoğlu and Stafford, 2014;Kalfaoğlu et al, 2018). In this study, we used two different approaches to investigate rhythmicity in typing: either by focusing on raw IKI, or by calculating their probability density function using KDE.…”