Publication Date

4-18-2025

Abstract

Consecutive failures in any task have been understudied in electrophysiology and neuroscience. Research identifies that single-errors tend to slow our response time to identify feedback and respond accordingly to ensure a correct response for the next task. However, evidence is limited regarding what the commission of consecutive errors does in relation to not only behavior, but also in relation to adaptations in attention or self-regulation. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have revealed two important components of neural activity that can assess this self-regulatory activity with similar morphology and topography. The error positivity (Pe) is a positive wave that peaks due to the conscious recognition of an error and the P3b is a positive wave that peaks due to attentional resources focused on stimuli. We explored these self-regulatory and attentional indicators in a computerized baseball pitching paradigm. We had two groups of participants complete the paradigm, collegiate baseball players and novices, to explore the potential differences in their single-error and consecutive-error Pe and P3b amplitudes. Our findings revealed a significant decrease in P3b amplitude between consecutive-error and single-error in collegiate baseball players but not in novices, indicating collegiate baseball players had less attentional focus on the next stimulus event of the task after committing multiple errors in a row rather than after a single-error. There were no significant findings regarding Pe amplitude between consecutive-errors and single-errors in either collegiate baseball players or novices. Although, a significant relationship between P3b amplitude and post-consecutive-error as well as a significant increase in response accuracy after consecutive-errors was found in novices. These findings could suggest that in an area of expertise, consecutive-errors may reduce focus on upcoming stimuli due to frustration or self-disappointment. In an area of inexperience, consecutive-errors may increase error salience.

Disciplines

Neurosciences

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