Testing theories of post-error slowing

• Published in: Attention, perception & psychophysics Vol. 74; no. 2; pp. 454 - 465
• Main Authors: Dutilh, Gilles, Vandekerckhove, Joachim, Forstmann, Birte U., Keuleers, Emmanuel, Brysbaert, Marc, Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 01.02.2012; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Activity levels. Psychomotricity; Aging; Attention; Awareness; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Bias; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Processes; Cognitive Psychology; Decision Making; Diffusion; Discrimination, Psychological; Evidence; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Internal-External Control; Language; Miscellaneous; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Problem Solving; Psychological Theory; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Risk-Taking; Semantics; Studies; Response time distributions; Cognitive control and automaticity; Lexical decision; Response caution; Diffusion model decomposition; Human; Statistical distribution; Theory; Error; Cognition; Automatic processing; Language; Response time; Slowing down; Mathematical model; Cognitive control
• ISSN: 1943-3921; 1943-393X
• DOI: 10.3758/s13414-011-0243-2

People tend to slow down after they make an error. This phenomenon, generally referred to as post-error slowing , has been hypothesized to reflect perceptual distraction, time wasted on irrelevant processes, an a priori bias against the response made in error, increased variability in a priori bias, or an increase in response caution. Although the response caution interpretation has dominated the empirical literature, little research has attempted to test this interpretation in the context of a formal process model. Here, we used the drift diffusion model to isolate and identify the psychological processes responsible for post-error slowing. In a very large lexical decision data set, we found that post-error slowing was associated with an increase in response caution and—to a lesser extent—a change in response bias. In the present data set, we found no evidence that post-error slowing is caused by perceptual distraction or time wasted on irrelevant processes. These results support a response-monitoring account of post-error slowing.