Event-Related Brain Potentials Following Incorrect Feedback in a Time-Estimation Task: Evidence for a “Generic” Neural System for Error Detection

• Published in: Journal of cognitive neuroscience Vol. 9; no. 6; pp. 788 - 798
• Main Authors: Miltner, Wolfgang H. R., Braun, Christoph H., Coles, Michael G. H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 01.11.1997; MIT Press Journals; MIT Press Journals, The
• Subjects: Action potentials (Electrophysiology); Brain; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive psychology; Electrophysiology; Evaluation; Feedback loops (Systems theory); Methods; Neural conduction; Neurology; Observations; Physiological aspects; Stimuli (Psychology); Time perception; Germany; United States
• ISSN: 0898-929X; 1530-8898
• DOI: 10.1162/jocn.1997.9.6.788

We examined scalp-recorded event-related potentials following feedback stimuli in a time-estimation task. Six hundred msec after indicating the end of a 1 sec interval, subjects received a visual, auditory, or somatosensory stimulus that indicated whether the interval they had produced was correct. Following feedback indicating incorrect performance, a negative deflection occurred, whose characteristics corresponded closely to those of the component (the error-related negativity) that accompanies errors in choice reaction time tasks. Furthermore, equivalent dipole analysis suggested that, for all three modalities, the distribution of the scalp potential was consistent with a local source in the anterior cingulate cortex or a more distributed source in the supplementary motor areas. These loci correspond closely to those described previously for the error-related negativity. We conclude that the error-related negativity is the manifestation of the activity of a “generic” neural system involved in error detection.