Processing a Display Even after you Make a Response to it. How Perceptual Errors can be Corrected

Abstract

We know that when people make responses which they did not intend they can discover this by monitoring kinaesthetic and visual feedback. It is less clear whether they can also correct perceptual errors which occur when they mistake one signal for another. It was argued that, if they can sometimes do this, extra errors which occur when discriminations become more difficult may be detected and corrected. Experiment I compared the ability of young fit subjects to detect errors made during easy and during difficult discriminations between tone signals. There was no evidence that any additional errors made to difficult discriminations were detected. Fast errors were detected, slower errors were not. The results were consistent with the idea that subjects can detect fast motor errors by monitoring feedback, but that they cannot detect perceptual mistakes. In Experiment II subjects made easy and difficult line length discriminations. Displays lasted for 100 ms, 200 ms or 500 ms and were followed by random masks. In this case, fast errors were again corrected more frequently than slow errors but eight aspects of the data suggest that subjects could, and did, correct perceptual as well as motor mistakes and that they managed to do this by continuing to process a display after the moment at which they may have initiated an impulsive response to it. The data are interpreted in terms of a “Committee Decision” model for extended perceptual processing previously applied to other, similar data by Rabbitt and Rodgers (1977) and Rabbitt, Cumming and Vyas (1978).

Response-based strengthening in task shifting: Evidence from shift effects produced by errors.

“…However, one might argue that no error detection in the sense of Rabbitt and Vyas (1981) took place during posterror processing or that this had no effect on subsequent performance. That is, it could be that there was no posterror phase when the intended task was activated.…”

Modeling behavioral measures of error detection in choice tasks: Response monitoring versus conflict monitoring.

“…Similar assumptions underlie, for instance, the committee decision model by Rabbitt and colleagues (Rabbitt et al, 1978;Rabbitt & Vyas, 1981), which was initially developed to explain the ability to correct and detect errors very quickly. In those studies, participants either had to correct errors immediately or indicate a detected error (e.g., by pressing a neutral response key).…”

“…For instance, stimulus masking (Rabbitt & Vyas, 1981) and increasing the number of response alternatives impairs ECRs (Rabbitt & Rodgers, 1977), whereas stimulusresponse compatibility affects ECRs (Rabbitt & Phillips, 1967) as well as ESRs (Rabbitt, 1967). Interestingly, Rabbitt (1990Rabbitt ( , 2002 compared both measures and found that ECRs are faster and occur more frequently than ESRs.…”

“…As already mentioned, Rabbitt and colleagues (Rabbitt et al, 1978;Rabbitt & Vyas, 1981) considered two behavioral measures of error detection. Their participants had to either correct errors immediately by giving the correct response (error correction response; ECR) or indicate a detected error, for instance by pressing a neutral key or by simultaneously pressing all response keys (error signaling response; ESR).…”

Sending mixed signals: worry is associated with enhanced initial error processing but reduced call for subsequent cognitive control

“…The study of action monitoring is rooted in Rabbitt's classic findings regarding the recruitment of cognitive control following an error (Rabbitt, 1966;Rabbitt and Vyas, 1981; also see Danielmeier and Ullsperger, 2011). Following the commission of an error, participants often, and automatically, take action to correct the error and engage in a speed/accuracy tradeoff on subsequent trials in order to minimize the likelihood of subsequent errors (Rabbitt, 1966;Danielmeier and Ullsperger, 2011).…”