My mistake? Enhanced error processing for commanded compared to passively observed actions

We often ask other people to carry out actions for us in order to reach our goals. However, these commanded actions may sometimes go awry, and goal attainment is hindered by errors of the following person. Here, we investigated how the commanding person processes these errors of their follower. Because such errors indicate that the original goal of the command is not met, error processing for these actions should be enhanced compared to passively observing another person's actions. Participants thus either commanded another agent to perform one of four key press responses or they passively observed the agent responding. The agent could respond correctly or commit an error in either case. We compared error processing of commanded and passively observed actions using observation-related post-error slowing (oPES) as a behavioral marker and observed-error-related negativity (oN_E /oERN) and observed-error positivity (oP_E ) as electrophysiological markers. Whereas error processing, as measured via the oERN, was similarly pronounced for commanded and observed actions, commanded actions gave rise to stronger oPES and a stronger oP_E . These results suggest that enhanced monitoring is an automatic by-product of commanding another person's actions.