Neural mechanisms involved in error processing: A comparison of errors made with and without awareness

By R. Hester, John J. Foxe, Sophie Molholm, Marina Shpaner, Hugh Garavan. NeuroImage, 2005

321 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The ability to detect an error in one's own performance and then to improve ongoing performance based on this error processing is critical for effective behaviour. In our event-related fMRI experiment, we show that explicit awareness of a response inhibition commission error and subsequent post-error behaviour were associated with bilateral prefrontal and parietal brain activation. Activity in the anterior cingulate region, typically associated with error detection, was equivalent for both errors subjects were aware of and those they were not aware of making. While anterior cingulate activation has repeatedly been associated with error-related processing, these results suggest that, in isolation, it is not sufficient for conscious awareness of errors or post-error adaptation of response strategies. Instead, it appears, irrespective of awareness, to detect information about stimuli/responses that requires interpretation in other brain regions for strategic implementation of post-error adjustments of behaviour.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e2d417fc68208073a81a89d7ed42ba2d94860949

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Going AWOL in the Brain: Mind Wandering Reduces Cortical Analysis of External Events (2008, background): “This notion is consistent with Hester et al. (2005), who suggest that ‘‘momentary inattention to task demands might prevent the unconscious detection of an error’’ (p. 606).”
Neurophysiology of performance monitoring and adaptive behavior. (2014, background): “In a modified response reversal task, the reward magnitude was gradually decreased on correct actions until the monkey pMFC vmPFC mOFC IOFC Cbl Mon salience, arousal, reward prediction error motor invigoration outcome monitoring credit assignment top-down attentional control top-down attentional con”
The Neurocircuitry of Impaired Insight in Drug Addiction (2009, unknown): “For example, contrasting errors (on a hybrid Stroop and Go/No-Go task) of which participants were aware with those of which they were unaware revealed sizeable fronto-parietal activation that encompassed the left insula; conversely, the rostral and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was equally active”
Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering (2009, background): “Thought probes provided subjective reports of mind wandering, while task performance errors provided a behavioral index of mind wandering (12-17).”
Error awareness and the error-related negativity: evaluating the first decade of evidence (2012, methodology): “They also employed a novel paradigm into the study of the effects of error awareness on the ERN, that has been previously used in the fMRI domain by Hester et al. (2005) to probe the activity of the RCZ on reported and non-reported error trials (see below).”
Dissociable components of error processing: On the functional significance of the Pe vis-à-vis the ERN/Ne (2005, background): “The further development and specification of hypotheses regarding the functional significance of the Pe would undoubtedly be stimulated by knowledge of the neural generators of the Pe. Neuroimaging studies (especially fMRI) may provide a promising approach for examining the neural generators of the ”
Error-related anterior cingulate cortex activity and the prediction of conscious error awareness (2012, methodology): “To indicate “error awareness” participants were trained to forego the regular go trial button response and instead to execute the alternative “error awareness” response following any commission error.”