Li Qing, Wang Jing, Li Zhifang, Chen Antao
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200438, China
J Neurosci. 2022 Aug 31;42(35):6800-6809. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0590-22.2022.
Errors can elicit post-error adjustments that serve to optimize performance by preventing further errors. An essential but unsolved issue is that whether post-error adjustments are domain-general or domain-specific, which was investigated in the present study through eliciting different types of errors. Behavioral and electrophysiological data were recorded when male and female subjects performed the Eriksen flanker task. For this study, we examined the aforementioned issue by combining event-related potential and multivariate pattern analysis. The results indicated that post-error slowing, error-related negativity, and error positivity were comparable between congruent and incongruent errors, indicating that errors triggered domain-general interference mechanisms, whereas post-error accuracy and late positive potential elicited by incongruent errors were larger than those elicited by congruent errors, exhibiting domain-specific control adjustment mechanisms. Importantly, no successful decoding soon after errors was found between congruent and incongruent errors, but above-chance decoding was observed between these two types of errors with increasing time, which further support that domain-general adjustments occurred in the early stage, whereas domain-specific adjustments appeared in the late stage. Furthermore, brain-behavior correlation results suggested that the late post-error adjustments predicted subsequent behavior performance. Together, this study revealed that early domain-general interference adjustments induced by errors are reflected in error detection and error awareness, which are independent of error types; on the contrary, late domain-specific control adjustments are reflected in attentional adjustments, which are modulated by error types. To date, clear evidence on the specificity of post-error adjustments is lacking. The present study provides neurophysiological evidence that post-error adjustments simultaneously rely on both domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms. Event-related potential results indicated that domain-general adjustments were accompanied by the interference of error detection and error awareness. In contrast, domain-specific adjustments were associated with attentional adjustments. Multivariate pattern analysis further decoded the two features of post-error adjustments in the early stage matching the time patterns of error-related negativity and error positivity and in the late stage corresponding to the late positive potential. Temporal generalization analysis showed that domain-specific processing appeared stably in late post-error adjustments. Hence, we propose that post-error different stages may determine the specificity of post-error adjustments.
错误能够引发错误后调整，通过防止进一步出错来优化表现。一个关键但尚未解决的问题是，错误后调整是领域通用的还是领域特定的，本研究通过引发不同类型的错误对这一问题进行了探究。在男性和女性受试者执行埃里克森侧翼任务时记录了行为和电生理数据。在本研究中，我们通过结合事件相关电位和多变量模式分析来考察上述问题。结果表明，正确与错误试次中的错误后反应时延长、错误相关负波和错误正波相当，这表明错误触发了领域通用的干扰机制；而错误试次引发的错误后准确性和晚期正波大于正确试次引发的，表现出领域特定的控制调整机制。重要的是，在错误后不久，正确与错误试次之间未发现成功的解码，但随着时间增加，在这两种类型的错误之间观察到高于机遇水平的解码，这进一步支持了领域通用调整发生在早期阶段，而领域特定调整出现在后期阶段。此外，脑-行为相关性结果表明，错误后的后期调整预测了随后的行为表现。总之，本研究表明，由错误引发的早期领域通用干扰调整反映在错误检测和错误觉知中，这与错误类型无关；相反，后期领域特定控制调整反映在注意调整中，这由错误类型调节。迄今为止，缺乏关于错误后调整特异性的明确证据。本研究提供了神经生理学证据，表明错误后调整同时依赖领域通用和领域特定机制。事件相关电位结果表明，领域通用调整伴随着错误检测和错误觉知的干扰。相比之下，领域特定调整与注意调整相关。多变量模式分析进一步解码了错误后调整在早期阶段与错误相关负波和错误正波的时间模式相匹配、在后期阶段与晚期正波相对应的两个特征。时间泛化分析表明，领域特定加工在错误后的后期调整中稳定出现。因此，我们提出错误后的不同阶段可能决定了错误后调整的特异性。
