The effect of stimulus discriminability on stimulus-preceding negativities prior to instructive and feedback stimuli

Stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) was recorded in time estimation tasks that allowed the pre-instruction SPN and the pre-feedback SPN to be compared. In the task in which an acoustic tone was presented 3 s after a voluntary movement, (a) the level of stimulus discriminability (easy and difficult), and (b) the information content of the acoustic tone (feedback and instruction) were manipulated. The pre-instruction SPN over the right hemisphere tended to be larger under the difficult than under the easy level of discriminability, but the difference was only marginally significant. In contrast, the pre-feedback SPN over the right hemisphere was significantly larger under the easy than under the difficult level of discriminability. These findings suggest that the level of stimulus discriminability influences the pre-instruction and the pre-feedback SPN differently, and that it is probable that the pre-feedback and the pre-instruction SPN do not have the same functional significance.