ABSTRACT
Performance monitoring is an aspect of cognitive control that is crucial to optimal task performance. Error monitoring is a major domain of performance monitoring. In everyday life, people commit action slips that indicate losses of intentional control. Reason (1979) argues that “central to the notion of error is the failure of ‘planned actions’ to achieve a desired outcome” (p. 69). The key factor mediating action slips is the lack of close monitoring of ongoing activity by attentional control, even in a well-learned and familiar situation. In addition, these lapses also occur when exercising any well-learned behavior in daily life, particularly in states of reduced arousal and attention, such as during periods of extended wakefulness or sleep deprivation. Learning from errors is also critical to almost every
CONTENTS
6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 139 6.2 Sleep and Sleep Deprivation ............................................................................................ 140
6.2.1 Functions of Sleep .................................................................................................. 140 6.2.2 Sleep Problems and Sleep Disorders .................................................................. 141 6.2.3 Sleep Deprivation and Task Performance .......................................................... 142
6.2.3.1 Simple Tasks............................................................................................. 142 6.2.3.2 Higher-Level Control (Frontal Lobe-Sensitive) Tasks ........................ 143
6.3 Error Monitoring: Error Detection and Error Correction ............................................ 144 6.3.1 Electrophysiological Correlates of Error Detection: ERN and Pe ................... 145
6.3.1.1 Functional Significance of ERN ............................................................ 145 6.3.1.2 Functional Significance of Pe ................................................................ 147
6.3.2 Electrophysiological Correlates of Error Correction......................................... 148 6.3.3 Causes of Errors ..................................................................................................... 149
6.4 Sleep Deprivation and Error Monitoring ....................................................................... 149 6.4.1 Sleep Deprivation and Error Detection: ERN and Task Difficulty ................. 150 6.4.2 Sleep Deprivation and Error Correction: Explicit Instruction to Make
Immediate Error Corrections ............................................................................... 152 6.4.3 Sleep Deprivation, Motivational Incentives, and Post-Error Adjustments ...... 154 6.4.4 Sleep Deprivation, Monetary Incentives, and ERN .......................................... 156 6.4.5 Implications of the Pe and Post-Error Remedial Actions ................................. 157
6.5 Conclusions and Future Directions ................................................................................ 157 References ..................................................................................................................................... 158
newly learned psychomotor and cognitive behavior. When errors are detected during or after their commission, based on self-generated feed-forward and feedback information and/or externally provided feedback information, post-error remedies and adjustments become critical to achieving the intended goal.
