Dazed Decision-making; The Influence of Surprise on Post- Error Slowing

It is human to make mistakes. Moreover, it is human to slow down after one have made an error. The cause of this post-error slowing could be attributed to a lot of different factors, but one promising account argues that it results from the surprise that comes with an error. In this study, we investigated the influence of surprise about having made an error on the size of post-error slowing. The amount of surprise, defined as the discrepancy between participants´ expectations and the actual outcome, was manipulated by the independent variables feedback and difficulty. Participants performed a two-alternated forced choice task presenting squares with different contrasts and were exposed to blocks of trials that differ in difficulty and feedback. We expected to see an interaction effect whereby, when feedback is given, there is more post-error slowing in the easier trials compared to the harder trials. The results show post-error slowing in all the conditions, but the effect was small...Show moreIt is human to make mistakes. Moreover, it is human to slow down after one have made an error. The cause of this post-error slowing could be attributed to a lot of different factors, but one promising account argues that it results from the surprise that comes with an error. In this study, we investigated the influence of surprise about having made an error on the size of post-error slowing. The amount of surprise, defined as the discrepancy between participants´ expectations and the actual outcome, was manipulated by the independent variables feedback and difficulty. Participants performed a two-alternated forced choice task presenting squares with different contrasts and were exposed to blocks of trials that differ in difficulty and feedback. We expected to see an interaction effect whereby, when feedback is given, there is more post-error slowing in the easier trials compared to the harder trials. The results show post-error slowing in all the conditions, but the effect was small (~15 ms). The repeated-measures ANOVA revealed no significant main effect of difficulty or feedback. The interaction-effect of difficulty and feedback was also not significant. Limitations of our study are the small design faults in our task design, the duration of the experiment and the over-simplification of the concept surprise, since we did not take subjective factors into account. Future research could adjust our task design for the same of other research purposes.Show less

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Dazed Decision-making; The Influence of Surprise on Post- Error Slowing