The DOI matches its Crossref record; 88 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Error awareness and the error-related negativity: evaluating the first decade of evidence
Open accessAbstract
From its discovery in the early 1990s until this day, the error-related negativity (ERN) remains the most widely investigated electrophysiological index of cortical error processing. When researchers began addressing the electrophysiology of subjective error awareness more than a decade ago, the role of the ERN, alongside the subsequently occurring error positivity (Pe), was an obvious locus of attention. However, the first two studies explicitly addressing the role of error-related event-related brain potentials (ERPs) would already set the tone for what still remains a controversy today: in contrast to the clear-cut findings that link the amplitude of the Pe to error awareness, the association between ERN amplitude and error awareness is vastly unclear. An initial study reported significant differences in ERN amplitude with respect to subjective error awareness, whereas the second failed to report this result, leading to a myriad of follow-up studies that seemed to back up or contradict either view. Here, I review those studies that explicitly dealt with the role of the error-related ERPs in subjective error awareness, and try to explain the differences in reported effects of error awareness on ERN amplitude. From the point of view presented here, different findings between studies can be explained by disparities in experimental design and data analysis, specifically with respect to the quantification of subjective error awareness. Based on the review of these results, I will then try to embed the error-related negativity into a widely known model of the implementation of access consciousness in the brain, the global neuronal workspace (GNW) model, and speculate as the ERN's potential role in such a framework. At last, I will outline future challenges in the investigation of the cortical electrophysiology of error awareness, and offer some suggestions on how they could potentially be addressed.
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“ERN abnormalities are often interpreted as reflecting early, relatively automatic performance-monitoring processes, whereas Pe is more dependent on awareness, attention, task instructions, motivational context, confidence, and developmental stage [116,187,200].”
From Electrophysiological Correlates of Cognitive Dysfunction in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A Systematic and Mechanistic Review of EEG, ERP, and QEEG Evidence (2026) · cites this paper as [200]
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“Error-awareness research has emphasised the role of the anterior insula and related salience-network activity in conscious error perception, autonomic orienting, and the recruitment of adaptive control after mistakes [200,207].”
From Electrophysiological Correlates of Cognitive Dysfunction in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A Systematic and Mechanistic Review of EEG, ERP, and QEEG Evidence (2026) · cites this paper as [200]
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“Studies using anti-saccade and error-signalling paradigms have shown that Pe amplitude is typically larger for errors that participants consciously detect than for errors that remain unnoticed, whereas the relationship between ERN and awareness is less consistent [189,199,200].”
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Citations
Cites
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Cited by
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Neurophysiology of performance monitoring and adaptive behavior
Ullsperger, M., Danielmeier, C., & Jocham, G. (2014) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00041.2012 · Cited by 634
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Errare machinale est: the use of error-related potentials in brain-machine interfaces
Chavarriaga, R., Sobolewski, A., & Millán, J. D. R. (2014) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2014.00208 · Cited by 315
Shared neural markers of decision confidence and error detection
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Error awareness and the insula: links to neurological and psychiatric diseases
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wessel, J. R.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Wessel, Jan R.
- ORCID
- Wessel, Jan R.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2012
- Volume
- 6
- Pages
- 88-88
- ISSN
- 1662-5161 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3328124
- OpenAlex
- W2003004992
- Cited by
- 215
- References
- 86
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 7.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Free Will and Agency
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Keywords
- error-related negativity, error awareness, error positivity, error processing, access consciousness, event-related potentials, ERP amplitude
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