Action-effect negativity: irrelevant action effects are monitored like relevant feedback.
Goal-directed action presupposes the previous integration of actions and their perceptual consequences (action-effect binding). One function of action-effect bindings is to select actions by anticipating their consequences. Another, not yet well understood function is the prediction of action-contingent feedback. We used a probabilistic learning task and ERP analyses to compare the processing of explicit, performance-related feedback with the processing of task-irrelevant response-contingent stimuli. Replicating earlier findings, we found that negative performance feedback produced a feedback-related negativity (N(FB)), presumably related to response outcome evaluation. Interestingly, low-probability but task-irrelevant action effects elicited a signal similar to the N(FB), even though it had a shorter duration. Response delays on trials following negative feedback and following low-probability action effects were correlated with one another. These observations suggest that automatically acquired action-effect relations are exploited for anticipating upcoming events. Like task-relevant performance feedback, task-irrelevant action effects serve as a basis for action monitoring processes, presumably mediated by medial frontal cortex.
Band
Guido P H
GP
Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands. band@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
van Steenbergen
Henk
H
Ridderinkhof
K Richard
KR
Falkenstein
Michael
M
Hommel
Bernhard
B
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D030141:Feedback, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted