Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, 703 Third St, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA; University of Mississippi Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, 2500 State St, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, 703 Third St, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2020 Apr;150:37-49. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.01.009. Epub 2020 Jan 28.
The error-related negativity (ERN) is one of the most researched event-related potentials in the study of cognitive control, and it is thought to capture preconscious error-monitoring. ERN amplitude is known to be modulated by trait and state differences in affect, yet most ERN studies use 'cold' cognitive tasks that do not directly target affective processes involved in cognitive control. For example, speeded response-time tasks that elicit the ERN typically use neutral stimuli (e.g., letters, arrows), yet these paradigms are also flexible enough such that affective or social stimuli can readily be incorporated to target the role of affect in error-monitoring. In this project, the commonly-used arrow flanker task was modified to examine whether the expected behavioral and psychophysiological indices of error-monitoring would be observed using affective and social stimuli. Specifically, four different flanker tasks were administered using a within-subjects design with the following stimuli: arrows, neutral faces, unpleasant images, and pleasant images. Analyses indicated that the flanker tasks using arrows and faces elicited expected behavioral patterns (e.g., lower accuracy and slower reaction time on incongruent versus congruent trials) and ERN modulation by error versus correct trials. Although flanker tasks using unpleasant and pleasant stimuli also modulated the ERN, flanker effects on behavioral performance were not as consistent as the other tasks. Further, within incongruent trials, the ERN was larger when affective stimuli needed to be suppressed for a correct response. The correlations of the ERN and behavioral measures across tasks indicated some consistent individual differences in the ERN across tasks as well as substantial task-specific variances. This project lays the foundation for modifying classic error-monitoring tasks in a manner that may better target social and affective constructs that are of interest to clinical researchers.
错误相关负向波（ERN）是认知控制研究中最受关注的事件相关电位之一，被认为可以捕捉无意识的错误监测。ERN 幅度已知会受到特质和状态差异的影响，例如情绪差异，但大多数 ERN 研究使用“冷”认知任务，这些任务不会直接针对认知控制中涉及的情感过程。例如，引发 ERN 的快速反应时间任务通常使用中性刺激（例如，字母、箭头），但这些范式也足够灵活，可以很容易地纳入情感或社会刺激，以针对情感在错误监测中的作用。在这个项目中，常用的箭头 Flanker 任务被修改，以研究使用情感和社会刺激是否会观察到预期的错误监测行为和生理指标。具体来说，使用以下刺激物，通过被试内设计进行了四种不同的 Flanker 任务：箭头、中性面孔、不愉快的图像和愉快的图像。分析表明，使用箭头和面孔的 Flanker 任务引发了预期的行为模式（例如，在不一致与一致试验中，准确性较低且反应时间较慢）和由错误与正确试验引起的 ERN 调制。尽管使用不愉快和愉快刺激的 Flanker 任务也调制了 ERN，但 Flanker 对行为表现的影响不如其他任务一致。此外，在不一致试验中，当需要抑制情感刺激以获得正确反应时，ERN 更大。跨任务的 ERN 和行为测量的相关性表明，跨任务的 ERN 存在一些一致的个体差异，以及大量特定任务的差异。这个项目为以一种可能更好地针对临床研究人员感兴趣的社会和情感结构的方式修改经典错误监测任务奠定了基础。
