13:30 - 15:00
Wed-P14-Poster III-1
Wed-Poster III-1
Room: P14
The Relationship between Feedback Processing, Working Memory Updating and Behavioral Adaptation: An ERP Study
Wed-P14-Poster III-104
Presented by: Johannes Levin Graf
Johannes Levin Graf, Nicola Kristina Ferdinand
Department of Psychology, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Performance monitoring, like processing errors and feedback, is thought to induce executive function in order to adapt subsequent behavior. However, whereas there is considerable research on feedback-based learning and executive functions, studying which executive processes are initiated by feedback has been neglected. To this end, we used an adapted Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and examined feedback processing while the electroencephalogram was recorded in healthy young adults (aged 18-29 years, N=27). We examined feedback processing via the feedback-related negativity (FRN), an event-related potential (ERP) reflecting the unexpectedness of feedback. Additionally, as a core component of executive functions, we examined working memory updating measured via the P3b. We assessed whether the amplitude of the FRN in one trial is associated with updating in this trial and the extent of behavioral adaptation in subsequent trials. Preliminary results suggest that participants’ expectations of target behavior on subsequent trials were successfully induced, as reaction times decreased and accuracy increased with consecutive non-reversal trials. In line with these findings, P3b amplitudes decreased with outcome certainty, which is in accordance with assumptions about updating of working memory processes in this task, which in turn can influence behavior. Surprisingly, preliminary FRN data are not in accordance with coding for expectancy violations, as there was an increase in FRN amplitude across trials without a task switch, suggesting that the FRN does not work based on trial-based computations of expectation and thus shows a weaker link to the actual behavior.
Keywords: Cognitive control,working memory updating, feedback processing, behavioral adaptation, performance monitoring