The Impact Of Uncertainty In Rewards And Punishments On Error Processing And The Moderating Role Of Uncertainty Toleranc

Mistakes are annoying and threatening.How to effectively monitor errors and adjust behaviors is of great importance for one’s goal achievement and social adaptation.Error processing is a process of detecting the occurrence of errors(i.e.,error monitoring)and making subsequent adjustments(i.e.,post-error adjustment),which can be characterized by a number of behavioral and EEG indicators.Previous studies have shown that uncertainty affects error processing,but the findings are inconsistent.When comparing previous studies,we find that task relevance and personality differences may be potential reasons for the inconsistent results.The Uncertainty-Error Processing Integration Mechanism Model base on Personality Differences suggests that the effect of uncertainty on error processing depends on whether the level of motivation is enhanced or diminished.Specifically,when task relevance is high(i.e.uncertainty is highly tied to error consequences),uncertainty state may enhance error monitoring intensity by raising motivation levels;When task relevance is low(i.e.uncertainty is less associated with error consequences),uncertainty state may weaken or not affect the error monitoring.In this process,the intolerance of uncertainty(IU)may moderate defensive motivation in uncertain situations,thereby influencing error processing.This study examines the effects of different uncertainty states on error processing and the moderating role of IU,to test the above model.Experiment 1 combined reward uncertainty cues with an error awareness task based on the go/no-go paradigm,and found that reward enhanced participants’ accuracy on no-go trials.Meanwhile,the low IU group(i.e.,individuals who were more tolerant on uncertainty)had higher accuracy and slower error reaction time on no-go trials compared to the high IU group(i.e.,individuals who were less tolerant on uncertainty),but uncertainty and IU had no significant effects on error awareness rate and post-error adjustment.Experiment 2 used the same task paradigm but in a punishment uncertainty context,and revealed somewhat different findings.Specifically,in terms of error awareness rate,the low IU group had significantly lower error awareness rate than the high IU group.In terms of post-error reaction time adjustment,post-error reaction time was significantly slower for certain punishment condition compared to uncertain punishment and no punishment conditions.It was further found that uncertainty punishment interacted with IU to affect error processing: In the low IU group,post-error adjustment was slower for the certain punishment condition compared to the uncertain punishment and no punishment conditions;however,no such effect was found in the high IU group.In terms of post-error accuracy adjustment,the accuracy on trials after awareness errors was found to be significantly higher than the accuracy on trials after unawareness errors.These results suggest that reward and punishment uncertainty have different effects on error processing and that IU can moderate the relationship between punishment uncertainty and error processing,providing preliminary evidence for the Uncertainty-Error Processing Integration Mechanism Model base on Personality Differences,and inspiring a new perspective for explaining the contradictory results of previous studies.Meanwhile,the findings have good practical implications and potential applications for improving individuals’ adaptation to uncertain environments,and for enhancing task monitoring and promoting goal attainment.