Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Psychology
Major Professor
Peter E. Clayson, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Max Owens, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Robert Schlauch, Ph.D.
Keywords
Internalizing Symptoms, Externalizing Symptoms, Performance Monitoring, Cognitive Control
Abstract
Performance monitoring is a cognitive process that involves evaluating one’s own performance and adjusting behavior accordingly. Atypical neural and behavioral indices of performance monitoring are commonly observed in individuals with psychopathology and have led to hypotheses that perturbed performance monitoring may contribute to functional impairment. However, neural and behavioral indices of performance monitoring are often examined in isolation, so it remains unclear how error-related neural activity relates to subsequent behavioral adaptation on a trial-by-trial basis, and whether this coupling varies across different levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The present study examined trial-level relationships between error monitoring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behaviors (i.e., response time [RT] and accuracy) and tested whether these relationships varied as a function of self-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Data from the present college student sample (n =247) showed that larger error-related negativity (ERN; an index of early error monitoring) and error positivity (Pe; an index of later error-awareness) ERP components predicted longer RTs on the subsequent trial, consistent with post-error slowing. These ERP-RT relationships were not moderated by self-reported internalizing or externalizing symptom scores. The associations between ERPs and RT variability and between ERPs and accuracy were not consistent across models. Taken together, these results suggest that, across self-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms, trial-level coupling between error-related ERPs and subsequent behavioral adjustment remains largely preserved, highlighting the value of studying performance monitoring in psychopathology research.
Scholar Commons Citation
Park, Bohyun, "Psychiatric Symptom Severity and Performance Monitoring: Intraindividual Variability in Neural Responses and Behavioral Adjustments to Errors" (2025). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/11383
