Abstract
Performance in sustained attention tasks is known to be slowed by the occurrence of unexpected task-irrelevant distractors (novelty distraction) and the detection of errors (posterror slowing), 2 wellestablished phenomena studied separately and regarded as reflecting distinct underpinning mechanisms. We measured novelty distraction and posterror slowing in an auditory-visual oddball task to test the hypothesis that they both involve an orienting response. Our results confirm that the 2 effects exhibit a positive interaction. We show that a trial-by-trial measure of surprise credibly accounts for our empirical data. We suggest that novelty distraction and posterror slowing both reflect an orienting response to unexpected events and a reappraisal of action plans.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 192-200 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General |
Volume | 148 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |