General versus specific: Investigating the structure of individual differences in post-error slowing across time

Erroneous actions are typically followed by behavioral slowing, known as post-error slowing (PES), along with other post-error adjustments. These effects emerge on the first trial following an error and can persist across subsequent trials. While PES has been extensively studied experimentally, less attention has been given to inter-individual variability. Evidence suggests that the mechanisms underlying individual differences in PES are largely domain-general, spanning multiple tasks. However, as time elapses from the point of error, task-specific processes may increasingly influence these individual differences. In this study, we applied latent variable modeling to two large samples of participants who completed three canonical inhibitory control paradigms. Our findings indicate that individual differences in PES reflect both domain-general and task-specific abilities, with the influence of the domain-general factor seeming to decrease over time following error commission.