Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2017 Oct;54(10):1472-1482. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12899. Epub 2017 May 30.
Early error monitoring in the medial frontal cortex enables error detection and the evaluation of error significance, which helps prioritize adaptive control. This ability has been assumed to be independent from central capacity, a limited pool of resources assumed to be involved in cognitive control. The present study investigated whether error evaluation depends on central capacity by measuring the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN) in a flanker paradigm while working memory load was varied on two levels. We used a four-choice flanker paradigm in which participants had to classify targets while ignoring flankers. Errors could be due to responding either to the flankers (flanker errors) or to none of the stimulus elements (nonflanker errors). With low load, the Ne/ERN was larger for flanker errors than for nonflanker errors-an effect that has previously been interpreted as reflecting differential significance of these error types. With high load, no such effect of error type on the Ne/ERN was observable. Our findings suggest that working memory load does not impair the generation of an Ne/ERN per se but rather impairs the evaluation of error significance. They demonstrate that error monitoring is composed of capacity-dependent and capacity-independent mechanisms.
早期内侧前额叶皮层的错误监控可以实现错误检测和错误意义的评估，从而有助于优先进行适应性控制。这种能力被认为独立于中央容量，中央容量被认为是参与认知控制的有限资源池。本研究通过在两种工作记忆负荷水平下测量侧抑制范式中的错误相关负波（Ne/ERN），来研究错误评估是否依赖于中央容量。我们使用了一个四择一的侧抑制范式，参与者必须在忽略侧抑制的情况下对目标进行分类。错误可能是由于对侧抑制（侧抑制错误）或对刺激元素中的任何一个（非侧抑制错误）的反应造成的。在低负荷下，侧抑制错误比非侧抑制错误产生更大的 Ne/ERN——这种效应以前被解释为反映了这些错误类型的不同意义。在高负荷下，没有观察到错误类型对 Ne/ERN 的这种影响。我们的研究结果表明，工作记忆负荷本身不会损害 Ne/ERN 的产生，而是会损害错误意义的评估。它们表明，错误监控由依赖于容量的机制和不依赖于容量的机制组成。
