Foreshadowing of performance accuracy by event-related potentials: evidence from a minimal-conflict task.
BACKGROUND
Recent studies employing stimulus-response compatibility tasks suggest that an increase in the amplitude of the positive deflection of the response-locked event-related potential (ERP) foreshadows errors on forthcoming trials. However, no studies have tested the generalizability of error-foreshadowing positivity to tasks without stimulus-response interference.


RESULTS
The present study adopted an alternating-response task, in which the participants responded to the pointing direction of an arrowhead (up or down). Although the arrowhead direction alternated for the majority of trials (95%), occasionally this pattern was broken by a repeated stimulus, termed a lure trial. We compared the matched-reaction-time correct-preceding ERP with the error-preceding ERP on lure-preceding trials. There was no evidence that errors are foreshadowed by the increase of a positive electroencephalogram (EEG) deflection. To the contrary, analyses of ERPs time-locked to electromyogram (EMG) onset on the five consecutive lure-preceding trials showed larger positive deflections on correct-preceding than error-preceding trials. The post-response negativity did not differ between correct-preceding and error-preceding trials.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that in minimal conflict tasks a decreased positivity may foreshadow incorrect performance several trials prior to the error, possibly reflecting the waning of task-related efforts. Therefore, error-foreshadowing brain signals may be task-specific.
Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan. masaki@waseda.jp
Hiroaki
H
Masaki
Timothy I
TI
Murphy
Keita
K
Kamijo
Katuo
K
Yamazaki
Werner
W
Sommer
D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time