Violation of cognitive expectancy: An EEG account

How do people process feedback that violates their expectations? To address this question, our study uses an auditory delayed match-to-sample task with a novel half-congruent, half-incongruent presentation of response feedback. We hypothesized that feedback-related surprise would have effects on event-related potential (ERP) amplitude and latency in a “dose-dependent” manner (largest effect on the easiest trials, smallest effect on the hardest). The resulting waveform was identified as the feedback-related negativity (FRN). While our hypothesis was not confirmed, the results were noteworthy. Despite the feedback’s visual nature, the scalp tomography was highly auditory. This suggests that the FRN may be partially generated in the auditory cortex. To the best of our knowledge, this is a new finding within the FRN literature