Error Awareness Can Occur in the Absence of an Error-Related Negativity.

Abstract

Errors in choice tasks lead to a cascade of error-related brain activity in event-related potentials. While the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN) reflects an early error signal, the error positivity (Pe) has been attributed to the later emergence of error awareness. Previous work has shown that these two components can be dissociated using a target-masking paradigm. In this modified flanker paradigm, an invisible-target condition is realized in which errors are detectable even if the correct response is unknown. These errors have been shown to elicit a Pe without a Ne/ERN, demonstrating the independence of the two underlying systems. Here, we employed this paradigm to ask whether error awareness can emerge without a Ne/ERN. While performing the target-masking paradigm, participants provided metacognitive judgments to indicate whether an error has occurred on each trial (i.e., error signaling). The majority of participants were able to report detectable errors in the invisible-target condition. Crucially, this error signaling as well as a Pe was observable in the absence of a Ne/ERN. Our findings demonstrate that both error awareness (as indicated by successful error signaling) and the Pe do not depend on the early error signal reflected by the Ne/ERN and thus confirm the existence of two independent systems of error monitoring.