What happens after an error?

Abstract

Humans tend to slow down after making an error. A longstanding account of this post-error slowing is that people are simply more cautious. However, accuracy typically does not improve following an error leading some researchers to suggest that an initial orienting response may initially impair performance immediately following error. Unfortunately, characterizing the nature of this error-based impairment remains a challenge in standard tasks that use free response times. Using a new experimental approach, we exert tight control over the timing of responses to reveal the time course of stimulus-response processing. Participants are less accurate after an error even when given ample time to make a response. A computational model of response preparation rules out the possibility that errors lead to slower cognitive processing. Instead, we find that the "efficacy" of cognitive processing in producing an intended response is impaired following errors. Participants commit more perseverative slips of action following an error. Rather than a strategic shift along a single speed-accuracy tradeoff function, post-error slowing observed in free response time tasks may be an adaptive response to impaired cognitive processing that reflects a fundamentally altered relationship between the speed and accuracy of responses.