Error-related electromyographic activity over the corrugator supercilii is associated with neural performance monitoring

Emerging research in social and affective neuroscience has implicated a role for affect and motivation in performance monitoring and cognitive control. No study, however, has investigated whether facial electromyography (EMG) over the corrugator supercilii—a measure associated with negative affect a...

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Published inPsychophysiology Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 159 - 170
Main Authors Elkins-Brown, Nathaniel, Saunders, Blair, Inzlicht, Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2016
Subjects
Adolescent
Affect
Affect - physiology
Brain - physiology
Choice Behavior - physiology
Cognitive control
Conflict (Psychology)
Corrugator
Effort
Electroencephalography
Electromyography
ERN
Facial Muscles - physiology
Female
Humans
Inhibition (Psychology)
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Neuropsychology
Performance monitoring
Physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Young Adult
ERN
Corrugator
Pe
Effort
Affect
Performance monitoring
Cognitive control
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Summary:Emerging research in social and affective neuroscience has implicated a role for affect and motivation in performance monitoring and cognitive control. No study, however, has investigated whether facial electromyography (EMG) over the corrugator supercilii—a measure associated with negative affect and the exertion of effort—is related to neural performance monitoring. Here, we explored these potential relationships by simultaneously measuring the error‐related negativity, error positivity (Pe), and facial EMG over the corrugator supercilii muscle during a punished, inhibitory control task. We found evidence for increased facial EMG activity over the corrugator immediately following error responses, and this activity was related to the Pe for both between‐ and within‐subject analyses. These results are consistent with the idea that early, avoidance‐motivated processes are associated with performance monitoring, and that such processes may also be related to orienting toward errors, the emergence of error awareness, or both.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-3QPMLVJ3-L
ArticleID:PSYP12556
istex:DAD8A223A32B1A71AD6B3AE54236F913EE339A6D
The study materials and data for this paper can be accessed from Open Science Framework at
osf.io/c9tkd
We would like to thank Elizabeth Page‐Gould, Vincent Pillaud, Zoe Francis, Nicholas Hobson, and all the members of the Toronto Laboratory for Social Neuroscience for valuable discussion throughout the development of this work. We would also like to thank Naomi Sarah Ball, Sol Sun, Timothy Brown, and Barbara Elkins for their support. This research was made possible by grants from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Councils to MI.
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ISSN:0048-5772
1469-8986
1469-8986
1540-5958
DOI:10.1111/psyp.12556