The role of the error positivity in the conscious perception of errors.

Editor's Note: These short, critical reviews of recent papers in the Journal, written exclusively by graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, are intended to summarize the important findings of the paper and provide additional insight and commentary. For more information on the format and purpose of the Journal Club, please see Review of Steinhauser and Yeung Goal-directed behavior relies on the ability to detect errors and to correct the ac-tion(s) that led to the error. Research on error detection really took off with the discovery almost 20 years ago of two event-related potential (ERP) components found within the human EEG: the error-related negativity [ERN; or error negativity (Ne)] and the error positivity (Pe) (Falkenstein et al., 1991; Gehring et al., 1993). The ERN is a negative deflection that peaks ϳ50–80 ms after an erroneous button press. The Pe is a positive deflection that peaks ϳ100 –200 ms after an erroneous button press. While most research has focused on the role of the ERN in error detection, recent research is beginning to uncover the function of the Pe. Several influential theories have been put forth to explain the computation un-Specifically, the ERN has been proposed to reflect either competition between the erroneous and correct response representations (Yeung et al., 2004), a mismatch between the actual and expected correct response (Coles et al., 2001), or the result of less-than-expected reward outcomes (Holroyd and Coles, 2002). Thus, the ERN appears to represent an internal signal that an error is likely or has occurred. However, these theories fail to account for the role of the Pe in error detection. Nevertheless, research has begun to identify conditions that modulate this ERP component (Overbeek et al., 2005). The most consistent finding is that the Pe is generally larger on trials where participants are consciously aware that an error was made, whereas the ERN is similar for perceived and unperceived errors. This is consistent with the possibility that the Pe reflects the motivational significance of an error. Consciously perceived errors would be more significant, and more likely to lead to correcting one's erroneous actions, than unperceived errors. In a study recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, Steinhauser and Yeung (2010) examined the role of the ERN and the Pe in the conscious detection of an error. They hypothesized that the ERN and the Pe may reflect the accumulation of evidence that an error has occurred and/or the …