title: Cognitive control of conscious error awareness: error awareness and error positivity (Pe) amplitude in moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
abstract: Poor awareness has been linked to worse recovery and rehabilitation outcomes following moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (M/S TBI). The error positivity (Pe) component of the event-related potential (ERP) is linked to error awareness and cognitive control. Participants included 37 neurologically healthy controls and 24 individuals with M/S TBI who completed a brief neuropsychological battery and the error awareness task (EAT), a modified Stroop go/no-go task that elicits aware and unaware errors. Analyses compared between-group no-go accuracy (including accuracy between the first and second halves of the task to measure attention and fatigue), error awareness performance, and Pe amplitude by level of awareness. The M/S TBI group decreased in accuracy and maintained error awareness over time; control participants improved both accuracy and error awareness during the course of the task. Pe amplitude was larger for aware than unaware errors for both groups; however, consistent with previous research on the Pe and TBI, there were no significant between-group differences for Pe amplitudes. Findings suggest possible attention difficulties and low improvement of performance over time may influence specific aspects of error awareness in M/S TBI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University Provo, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Dustin M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Logan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University Provo, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Kyle R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University Provo, UT, USA ; Neuroscience Center, Brigham Young University Provo, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Larson
keywords: ERP; Pe; TBI; cognitive control; error awareness; event-related potential; post-error positivity; traumatic brain injury