Feedback-related brain activity predicts learning from feedback in multiple-choice testing

Different event-related potentials (ERPs) have been shown to correlate with learning from feedback in decision-making tasks and with learning in explicit memory tasks. In the present study, we investigated which ERPs predict learning from corrective feedback in a multiple-choice test, which combines elements from both paradigms. Participants worked through sets of multiple-choice items of a Swahili–German vocabulary task. Whereas the initial presentation of an item required the participants to guess the answer, corrective feedback could be used to learn the correct response. Initial analyses revealed that corrective feedback elicited components related to reinforcement learning (FRN), as well as to explicit memory processing (P300) and attention (early frontal positivity). However, only the P300 and early frontal positivity were positively correlated with successful learning from corrective feedback, whereas the FRN was even larger when learning failed. These results suggest that learning from corrective feedback crucially relies on explicit memory processing and attentional orienting to corrective feedback, rather than on reinforcement learning.     

Effects of feedback reliability on feedback-related brain activity: A feedback valuation account

Adaptive decision making relies on learning from feedback. Because feedback sometimes can be misleading, optimal learning requires that knowledge about the feedback’s reliability be utilized to adjust feedback processing. Although previous research has shown that feedback reliability indeed influences feedback processing, the underlying mechanisms through which this is accomplished remain unclear. Here we propose that feedback processing is adjusted by the adaptive, top-down valuation of feedback. We assume that unreliable feedback is devalued relative to reliable feedback, thus reducing the reward prediction errors that underlie feedback-related brain activity and learning. A crucial prediction of this account is that the effects of feedback reliability are susceptible to contrast effects. That is, the effects of feedback reliability should be enhanced when both reliable and unreliable feedback are experienced within the same context, as compared to when only one level of feedback reliability is experienced. To evaluate this prediction, we measured the event-related potentials elicited by feedback in two experiments in which feedback reliability was varied either within or between blocks. We found that the fronto-central valence effect, a correlate of reward prediction errors during reinforcement learning, was reduced for unreliable feedback. But this result was obtained only when feedback reliability was varied within blocks, thus indicating a contrast effect. This suggests that the adaptive valuation of feedback is one mechanism underlying the effects of feedback reliability on feedback processing.     

Repeated Self-Regulation and Asymmetric Hemispheric Activation

Numerous recent studies have investigated repeated self-regulation to uncover the processes involved in self-regulatory behavior over time. Results from most of these studies are consistent with a depletion process in which self-regulatory effectiveness declines over time due to resource depletion. The present research examined an additional factor that may also be involved in repeated self-regulatory exertion, namely, differential hemispheric activation. Five studies examined this issue, focusing on self-control tasks requiring avoidance or vigilance. Studies 1 to 3 indicated that these tasks resulted in greater relative right hemispheric activation. Studies 4 and 5 indicated that, consistent with this pattern of differential activation, initial vigilance self-control resulted in better subsequent performance on a spatial self-regulatory task but worse performance on a verbal self-regulatory task. These findings provide additional insight into the dynamics of self-regulatory behavior across tasks, suggesting the combination of tasks examined may influence the pattern of results obtained.     

Common mechanisms in error monitoring and action effect monitoring

In the present study, we considered error-related brain activity in event-related potentials, to investigate the relationship between error monitoring—that is, the detection and evaluation of erroneous responses—and action effect monitoring—that is, monitoring of the sensory consequences of behavior. To this end, participants worked on a task-switching paradigm that consisted of a free-choice task, in which a puzzle piece had to be attached to an existing one (the prime task), and a subsequent color flanker task (the probe task). We examined whether unexpected action effects in the prime task would affect the subsequent error monitoring in the probe task. We found the neural correlates of error monitoring during the probe task, the error-related negativity as well as the error positivity, to be increased after unexpected action effects in the prime task. In contrast, the neural correlates of visual attention were decreased after unexpected action effects, in line with recent findings on an attenuation of sensory processing after errors. Our results demonstrate a direct link between monitoring processes in the two tasks. We propose that both error monitoring and action effect monitoring rely on a common generic monitoring system related to novelty detection or affective processing. Preactivating this system by means of unexpected action effects increases the sensitivity for detecting an error in the subsequent task.     

Automatic activation of task-related representations in task shifting

Stimulus displays consisting of a target and a distractor can produce task conflicts when target and distractor are associated with different tasks. The present study examined whether these stimulus-induced task conflicts are affected by priming the irrelevant task or by increasing the salience of the distractor. In a series of three experiments, we employed a task-shifting paradigm in which subjects had to apply one of two judgments to either the global or the local level of a hierarchical stimulus. In each block, the target level and the judgment were either constant or mixed. Stimulus-induced judgment conflicts were measured by comparing performance for stimuli associated with two judgments and stimuli associated with only one. It turned out that only mixing the target level and not mixing the judgment increased the conflicts. These findings indicate that only the salience of the distractor modulates stimulus-induced conflicts.     

Cognitive control under stress: how stress affects strategies of task-set reconfiguration

This study investigated the effect of stress on cognitive control in task shifting. Subjects shifted between two tasks in an explicit cuing paradigm. Shift costs (i.e., performance decrements on task shifts relative to task repetitions) were measured for a long and a short cue-stimulus interval (CSI). Stress was varied by administering low-stress and high-stress IQ scales to two groups of subjects. In the low-stress group, shift costs were reduced with an increased CSI, a result that typically indicates anticipatory and shift-specific task-set reconfiguration. In the high-stress group, however, shift costs were independent of the CSI. This result is consistent with the idea that stress induces a change in the reconfiguration strategy, possibly to adapt to depleted resources.     

Monitoring and control in multitasking

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - The idea that conflict detection triggers control adjustments has been considered a basic principle of cognitive control. So far, this “conflict-control...     

Modeling behavioral measures of error detection in choice tasks: response monitoring versus conflict monitoring

The present study investigated the mechanisms underlying error detection in the error signaling response. The authors tested between a response monitoring account and a conflict monitoring account. By implementing each account within the neural network model of N. Yeung, M. M. Botvinick, and J. D. Cohen (2004), they demonstrated that both accounts make different predictions as to how error signaling performance is influenced by varying the participants' response criterion. These predictions were tested in an experiment using the Eriksen-flanker task. The qualitative pattern as well as a model fit favored the response monitoring account, which states that error detection is mediated by detecting internal error corrections.     

Conflict monitoring and the affective-signaling hypothesis—An integrative review

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Conflict-monitoring theory proposes that conflict between incompatible responses is registered by a dedicated monitoring system, and that this conflict signal...