Internal consistency of event-related potentials associated with cognitive control: N2/P3 and ERN/Pe

Recent studies in psychophysiology show an increased attention for examining the reliability of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), which are measures of cognitive control (e.g., Go/No-Go tasks). An important index of reliability is the internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach's alpha) of a measure. I...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPloS one Vol. 9; no. 7; p. e102672
Main Authors Rietdijk, Wim J R, Franken, Ingmar H A, Thurik, A Roy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 17.07.2014
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Addictive behaviors
Adult
Attention - physiology
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Brain Waves - physiology
Cocaine
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Consistency
Electroencephalography
Error correction
Error correction & detection
Event-related potentials
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Functional Laterality - physiology
Go/no-go discrimination learning
Humans
Male
Mismatch negativity
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Psychophysiology
Quantitative psychology
Reaction Time - physiology
Reliability
Semantics
Social Sciences
Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires
Young Adult
Netherlands
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Summary:Recent studies in psychophysiology show an increased attention for examining the reliability of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), which are measures of cognitive control (e.g., Go/No-Go tasks). An important index of reliability is the internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach's alpha) of a measure. In this study, we examine the internal consistency of the N2 and P3 in a Go/No-Go task. Furthermore, we attempt to replicate the previously found internal consistency of the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) and Positive-Error (Pe) in an Eriksen Flanker task. Healthy participants performed a Go/No-Go task and an Eriksen Flanker task, whereby the amplitudes of the correct No-Go N2/P3, and error trials for ERN/Pe were the variables of interest. This study provides evidence that the N2 and P3 in a Go/No-Go task are internally consistent after 20 and 14 trials are included in the average, respectively. Moreover, the ERN and Pe become internally consistent after approximately 8 trials are included in the average. In addition guidelines and suggestions for future research are discussed.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: WR IF ART. Performed the experiments: WR. Analyzed the data: WR IF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: WR IF. Wrote the paper: WR IF ART.
Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest regarding the authorship or publication of this article. The affiliation of Roy Thurik with Panteia does not influence the adherence of the study to the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials and did not influence the design or execution of the study. Panteia is involved in policy research and management advice, which is unrelated to the subject of the present study.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0102672