Cognitive flexibility and N2/P3 event-related brain potentials

• Main Authors: Bruno Kopp, Alexander Steinke, Antonino Visalli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2020-06-01
• Series: Scientific Reports
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66781-5

Abstract Task switching is often considered for evaluating limitations of cognitive flexibility. Switch costs are behavioural indices of limited cognitive flexibility, and switch costs may be decomposable into stimulus- and response-related fractions, as conjectured by the domain hypothesis of cognitive flexibility. According to the domain hypothesis, there exist separable stimulus- and response-related neural networks for cognitive flexibility, which should be discernible as distinct event-related potentials (ERPs). The present card-matching study allowed isolating stimulus- and response-related switch costs, while measuring ERPs evoked by task cues and target stimuli with a focus on the target-locked N2/P3 complex. Behavioural data revealed that both stimulus-task and response-task bindings contribute to switch costs. Cue-locked ERPs yielded larger anterior negativity/posterior positivity in response to switch cues compared to repeat cues. Target-locked ERPs revealed separable ERP correlates of stimulus- and response-related switch costs. P3 waveforms with fronto-central scalp distributions emerged as a corollary of stimulus-related switch costs. Fronto-centrally distributed N2 waveforms occurred when stimulus-task and response-task bindings contributed jointly to switch costs. The reported N2/P3 ERP data are commensurate with the domain hypothesis according to which there exist separable stimulus- and response-related neural networks for cognitive flexibility.