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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Errors as a Means of Reducing Impulsive Food Choice

Errors as a Means of Reducing Impulsive Food Choice

Published on: June 5, 2016

Slowing after Observed Error Transfers across Tasks.

Lijun Wang¹, Weigang Pan¹, Jinfeng Tan¹

¹Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.

|March 3, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Observing errors triggers post-error slowing (PES), a cognitive control mechanism. This slowing effect is a generic process that generalizes across different tasksets, even when stimuli and rules change.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Post-error slowing (PES) is a well-documented phenomenon where individuals slow down after making an error.
Previous research has primarily focused on PES following self-generated errors, leaving the generalization of this effect across different tasksets and its underlying mechanisms unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether the post-error slowing (PES) effect generalizes across different tasksets after observing errors.
To examine the generation mechanisms of PES following observed errors.

Main Methods:

An observation-execution task was designed across three experiments.
Participants observed task outcomes and then performed their own task, with varying error rates and taskset distinctiveness.
Response deadlines were manipulated in one experiment to exclude ceiling effects.

Main Results:

Post-error slowing (PES) was consistently observed after errors in the observation task, regardless of error rate.
The PES effect generalized across tasksets with distinct stimuli and response rules, indicating a generic adjustment process.
Slowing effects and improved accuracy did not co-occur, suggesting independent behavioral adjustments.

Conclusions:

The occurrence of PES after observed errors is independent of error probability, aligning with cognitive control theories.
PES following observed errors is a generic process that transcends taskset boundaries.
Behavioral adjustments, such as slowing and accuracy improvements, appear to be independent mechanisms in response to observed errors.