@phdthesis{Steinhauser2017, author = {Steinhauser, Robert}, title = {Pre-error cognition: insights into cognitive control through neural precursors of performance errors [cumulative dissertation]}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-4296}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Cognitive control processes enable humans to break out of reflexive stimulus-response chains and to align their behavior towards self-imposed goals. Despite decades of research on the nature of these processes, they remain a complex and only partly comprehensible fabric of interactions and interdependencies. Three electroencephalographic studies aimed to increase knowledge about cognitive control by utilizing error precursors - neural activity preceding the occurrence of performance errors. Study 1 used error precursors to separate two preparatory control processes of a task-switching paradigm and to investigate their relative contribution to the emergence of task confusions. The results highlight the importance of general preparation in the form of cue encoding but also demonstrate how switch-specific preparatory activity can affect the selection of the currently relevant task set. In Study 2, preparatory processes were examined in the more complex environment of a dual-tasking paradigm. Distinct error precursors for the respective subtasks and a neural correlate of task order switches that is independent of these provide evidence for a multi-level system of control processes with advance prioritization of subtasks in dual-tasking. Study 3 finally focused on reactive control - adjustments to neural activity and behavior following unfavorable outcomes such as performance errors. Here, error precursors serve as a prerequisite to answer the question of adaptivity of post-error adjustments in visual search. The results confirm that a post-error reduction of target localization activity serves to attenuate a potential error source in this paradigm. In summary, the three studies of this doctoral thesis contribute to understanding the complex system of control processes by providing evidence for accounts that suggest well-established knowledge about control processes to be reconsidered in light of more fine-grained differentiation of the underlying subcomponents.}, subject = {Allgemeine Psychologie}, language = {en} }