Notebaert, W. , Nunez Castellar, E. , Van der Borght, L. & Fias, W.
Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
We proposed the orienting account for post-error slowing by demonstrating that responses only slow down after infrequent errors. In a recent study, we observed that slowing occurred only after salient infrequent feedback. When the feedback was less positive or less negative (+1 instead of +10 or -1 instead of -10) than expected no slowing was observed However, when the feedback was more positive or more negative than expected (+10 instead of +1 or -10 instead of -1) subsequent slowing was observed irrespective of the valence. Similarly, in a different study, we demonstrated that post-error slowing reduced as the (long) experiment proceeded. We also explain this effect in terms of saliency, in the sense that errors become less salient and attention-capturing during the time-course of the experiment.