Electrophysiological indicators of surprise and entropy in dynamic task-switching environments

This event-related brain potential (ERP) study aimed at bridging two hitherto widely separated domains of cognitive neuroscience. Specifically, we combined the analysis of cognitive control in a cued task-switching paradigm with the fundamental question of how uncertainty is encoded in the brain. Two functional models of P3 amplitude variation in cued task-switching paradigms were put to an empirical test: (1) According to the P3b surprise hypothesis, parietal P3b waveforms are related to surprise over switch cues. (2) According to the P3a entropy hypothesis, frontal P3a waveforms are associated with entropy over switch outcomes. In order to examine these hypotheses, we measured the EEG while sixteen healthy young participants performed cued task-switching paradigms closely modeled to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We applied a factorial design, with number of tasks (two vs. three viable tasks), cue explicitness (task cuing vs. transition cuing), and cue contingency (prospectively-signaled cuing vs. feedback-based cuing) as independent variables. The ERP results replicated the commonly reported P3b effect associated with task switches, and further showed that P3a amplitudes were related to the entropy of switch outcomes, thereby supporting both hypotheses. Based on these ERP data, we suggest that surprise over task switches, and entropy over switch outcomes, constitute dissociable functional correlates of P3b and P3a ERP components in task-switching paradigms, respectively. Finally, a theoretical integration of the findings is proposed within the framework of Sokolov's (1966) entropy model of the orienting response (OR).