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Changing pre-existing, automatized motor skills often requires interference control. Prepotent response inhibition - one subdimension of inhibition - has been theorized to be particularly associated with successful interference control in motor skills. Recent evidence suggests that different inhibition subdimensions elicit distinct ERP patterns (with larger P3 components for response inhibition). Therefore, we examined whether a similar ERP pattern would arise in a task demanding participants to overcome interference emerging from strong motor automatisms. This was realized within a typing paradigm involving a letter switch manipulation which is able to produce strong, immediate interference effects. Most importantly, stimulus-locked ERP analyses revealed an enhanced P3 component at frontal, central and most pronouncedly parietal sites for interference trials, in line with previous reported patterns for response inhibition. Together, different analyses provide first insights into the electrophysiological correlates of motor skill change, corroborating the pivotal role of response inhibition for successful interference control., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We investigated the influence of Fourier power spectrum (1/f(p)) characteristics on face learning while recording ERPs that are associated with the representation of faces. Two image sets with an altered 1/f(p) characteristics were created. The first set consisted of stimuli with a STEEP SLOPE (1/f(3.5)) and therefore enhanced low spatial frequencies (LSF) and attenuated high spatial frequencies (HSF). The second set consisted of stimuli with a SHALLOW SLOPE (1/f(2)), similar to complex natural scenes and artwork, resulting in enhanced HSF and attenuated LSF. Faces with a SHALLOW SLOPE elicited larger N170 and N250 amplitudes and larger old/new effects for central positivity in comparison to unmodified faces. The opposite effect was observed for faces with a STEEP SLOPE that led to slower reaction times. This result suggests that diminishing the ratio of fine detail (HSF) to coarse structures (LSF) impairs face learning, whereas increasing it facilitates neurocognitive correlates of face learning., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study demonstrates that operant conditioning may increase the P300 component of the event-related potential above a level obtained without contingent training. An experimental group of subjects was rewarded for producing large P300 amplitudes and was compared with a yoked control group which was rewarded on a random basis. During training the experimental subjects increased both the amplitude of the P300 and of a subsequent frontal negative slow wave relative to the control group. These training effects were independent of prestimulus potential shifts and occurred likewise for target and nontarget stimuli.