Unconscious errors enhance prefrontal-occipital oscillatory synchrony.
The medial prefrontal cortex (MFC) is critical for our ability to learn from previous mistakes. Here we provide evidence that neurophysiological oscillatory long-range synchrony is a mechanism of post-error adaptation that occurs even without conscious awareness of the error. During a visually signaled Go/No-Go task in which half of the No-Go cues were masked and thus not consciously perceived, response errors enhanced tonic (i.e., over 1-2 s) oscillatory synchrony between MFC and occipital cortex (OCC) leading up to and during the subsequent trial. Spectral Granger causality analyses demonstrated that MFC --> OCC directional synchrony was enhanced during trials following both conscious and unconscious errors, whereas transient stimulus-induced occipital --> MFC directional synchrony was independent of errors in the previous trial. Further, the strength of pre-trial MFC-occipital synchrony predicted individual differences in task performance. Together, these findings suggest that synchronous neurophysiological oscillations are a plausible mechanism of MFC-driven cognitive control that is independent of conscious awareness.
Cohen
Michael X
MX
Amsterdam Center for the Study of Adaptive Control in Brain and Behavior, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands. mikexcohen@gmail.com
van Gaal
Simon
S
Ridderinkhof
K Richard
KR
Lamme
Victor A F
VA