The nature of the verbal self-monitor

Abstract

This thesis investigated the correlates of verbal self-monitoring in healthy adults. The central questions addressed in the thesis are: Does verbal monitoring work in a similar way as action monitoring? If the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) is associated with error processing in action monitoring, can it also be applied to error processing in verbal monitoring? In a series of experiments, an ERN was shown in a various tasks in which performance was dependent on a verbal judgment. Moreover, the ERN was not only present after verbal errors, but was also affected by lexical conflict, which was the result of simultaneous activation of multiple concepts from the same semantic category. Results of studies in the thesis provide converging evidence that verbal monitoring might be a special case of general performance monitoring instead of a completely separate process. Both types of monitoring theories independently state that in order to detect an error a monitor compares the representation of a correct response with the copy of an on-line response. It is possible that during verbal monitoring, as well as during executive action monitoring, a copy of the on-line response is created and compared to the representation of the correct response. If there is a mismatch between them, an error signal is generated and corrective processes can be started.