title: Error reactivity in self-paced performance: Highly-accurate individuals exhibit largest post-error slowing.
abstract: Reaction time is typically increased following an erroneous response. This post-error slowing is traditionally explained by a strategic adjustment of response threshold towards more conservative behaviour. A recently proposed orienting account provides an alternative explanation for post-error slowing. According to this account, committing an error evokes an orienting response (OR), which inhibits information processing in the subsequent trial, resulting in slow and inaccurate performance. We tested a straightforward prediction of the orienting account in the context of self-paced performance, adopting an individual-differences approach: Post-error slowing should be larger the less frequent an error is. To this end, participants were classified into three groups differing in overall performance accuracy. Larger post-error slowing and stronger post-error accuracy decrease were observed for the high-accuracy group than for the two other groups. Practice pronounced the post-error accuracy decline, especially for the high-accuracy group. The results are consistent with the orienting account of post-error slowing but are problematic for accounts based on strategic evaluation mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Evolutionary Cognition, University of Tübingen, Germany. michael.steinborn@uni-tuebingen.de
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Steinborn
authors.forename: Hagen C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Flehmig
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bratzke
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schröter
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D030141:Feedback, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult