Cognitive and physiological determinants of error awareness

当快速选择任务中出现错误时，可以在几分之一秒内以高可靠性报告这些错误。这种所谓的错误意识大概依赖于证据积累过程，在该过程中，错误的证据从多个来源采样。错误正性是一种事件相关电位(ERP)，在错误发生后200至500毫秒之间达到峰值，已被确定为累积证据的神经关联，因为它预测参与者是否以及有多大信心意识到错误。然而，人们很少知道哪些认知和生理机制为这一过程提供了证据，从而确定是否明确地检测到了错误。早期的想法认为，错误负性是错误处理的早期事件相关电位，反映了提供这一证据的大脑信号。然而，相关研究并未揭示错误负性与错误意识之间的密切关系，这使得其在错误意识中的作用尚不清楚。在本项目中，我们使用了一种新的目标掩蔽范式来揭示错误负性和其他认知和生理变量对错误意识的贡献。有了这个范例，我们能够引出错误，对于这些错误，可以观察到错误是积极的，但没有错误消极。在项目的第一部分，我们利用这个范式来调查错误负性是否是必要的前提条件(1)对于参与者以高度自信地意识到错误，(2)对于引起心率减速和瞳孔扩张的错误，即已经被讨论为参与错误意识的自主反应，以及(3)对于所谓的早期错误感觉的发生，这是指在错误发生之前就已经检测到错误的感觉。在第二部分中，我们使用目标掩蔽范式来探索任务中嵌入的哪些元认知线索会影响错误意识。在这里，我们调查了关于错误可能性的知识以及预测错误发生的刺激背景和行动效应的作用。这个项目的结果将有助于理解人类大脑中错误处理的认知和神经结构。

When errors occur in speeded choice tasks, these errors can be reported with a high reliability and within the fraction of a second. This so-called error awareness presumably relies on an evidence accumulation process, in which evidence for an error is sampled from multiple sources. The error positivity, an event-related potential (ERP) peaking between 200 and 500 ms after errors, has been identified as a neural correlate of the accumulated evidence, as it predicts whether and how confidently participants become aware of an error. However, little is known which cognitive and physiological mechanisms provide the evidence for this process, and thus determine whether or not an error is explicitly detected. Early ideas assume that the error negativity, an early ERP correlate of error processing, reflects a brain signal that provides this evidence. However, correlative approaches did not reveal a robust relationship between the error negativity and error awareness, leaving its role for error awareness unclear. In the present project, we use a novel target-masking paradigm to uncover the contribution of the error negativity and other cognitive and physiological variables to error awareness. With this paradigm, we are able to elicit errors for which an error positivity but no error negativity can be observed. In a first part of the project, we utilize this paradigm to investigate whether an error negativity is a necessary precondition (1) for participants becoming aware of an error with high confidence, (2) for errors eliciting heart rate deceleration and pupil dilation, that is, autonomous reactions that have been discussed as being involved in error awareness, and (3) for the occurrence of a so-called early error sensation, which refers to the feeling of having detected an error already before its occurrence. In a second part, we use the target-masking paradigm to explore which metacognitive cues embedded in the task can influence error awareness. Here, we investigate the role of knowledge about error likelihood as well as stimulus contexts and action effects that are predictive of error occurrence. The results of this project will contribute to an understanding of the cognitive and neural architecture of error processing in the human brain.