title: Impaired rapid error monitoring but intact error signaling following rostral anterior cingulate cortex lesions in humans.
abstract: Detecting one's own errors and appropriately correcting behavior are crucial for efficient goal-directed performance. A correlate of rapid evaluation of behavioral outcomes is the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN) which emerges at the time of the erroneous response over frontal brain areas. However, whether the error monitoring system's ability to distinguish between errors and correct responses at this early time point is a necessary precondition for the subsequent emergence of error awareness remains unclear. The present study investigated this question using error-related brain activity and vocal error signaling responses in seven human patients with lesions in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and adjoining ventromedial prefrontal cortex, while they performed a flanker task. The difference between errors and correct responses was severely attenuated in these patients indicating impaired rapid error monitong, but they showed no impairment in error signaling. However, impaired rapid error monitoring coincided with a failure to increase response accuracy on trials following errors. These results demonstrate that the error monitoring system's ability to distinguish between errors and correct responses at the time of the response is crucial for adaptive post-error adjustments, but not a necessary precondition for error awareness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Eichstätt, Germany ; Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Polo Scientifico-Didattico di Cesena, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna Cesena, Italy.
authors.forename: Martin E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Maier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Eichstätt, Germany ; Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Polo Scientifico-Didattico di Cesena, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna Cesena, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Di Gregorio
authors.affiliation: Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Polo Scientifico-Didattico di Cesena, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna Cesena, Italy.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Muricchio
authors.affiliation: Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Polo Scientifico-Didattico di Cesena, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna Cesena, Italy ; Dipartimento di Psicologia, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Di Pellegrino
keywords: brain injury; error detection; error-related negativity (Ne/ERN); event-related potentials; performance monitoring