Ferdinand Nicola K, Mecklinger Axel, Opitz Bertram
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Brain Res. 2015 Dec 10;1629:72-84. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2015.10.017. Epub 2015 Oct 23.
The detection of unexpected or unfavorable events is crucial for successful behavioral adaptation. There is a family of ERP components, the so-called error negativities, that has been associated with these detection processes. In the current study, we explored the functional characteristics of one of these components, the N2b which reflects the detection of unexpected events in a stream of stimuli in our environment, in more detail. In a sequence learning task, we found that the same type of deviant event elicited an N2b only when it conveyed information about the to-be-learned sequence, but not when it was rendered learning-irrelevant by means of task instruction. This supports the view that deviant events generate an error negativity in a similar way as committed errors and negative feedback. It also demonstrates that error monitoring processes are very flexible and can be tailored to the specific demands of the task at hand, i.e., expectancy violations only activate the error system when the detected mismatch is classified as relevant for the specific goals in the current learning context. Additionally, a P3 to all deviant types was found reflecting a higher-order form of performance monitoring associated with evaluation of task-relevant events and updating of working memory contents.
检测意外或不利事件对于成功的行为适应至关重要。有一类ERP成分，即所谓的错误负波，与这些检测过程有关。在当前研究中，我们更详细地探究了其中一种成分N2b的功能特征，它反映了在我们环境中的一系列刺激中对意外事件的检测。在序列学习任务中，我们发现，只有当同类型的偏差事件传达了有关待学习序列的信息时，才会引发N2b，而当通过任务指令使其与学习无关时，则不会引发N2b。这支持了这样一种观点，即偏差事件与所犯错误和负面反馈类似，以相同方式产生错误负波。这也表明错误监测过程非常灵活，可以根据手头任务的特定需求进行调整，即只有当检测到的不匹配被归类为与当前学习情境中的特定目标相关时，预期违反才会激活错误系统。此外，还发现对所有偏差类型都有一个P3，反映了与任务相关事件评估和工作记忆内容更新相关的更高层次的绩效监测形式。
