Figure 2.

Illustration of the structure of the integrative review. (A) This figure illustrates the functional components of error processing and includes information about their relative relevance in the error monitoring process over time and their corresponding theoretical links. At the left of the figure, the different theoretical conceptions are outlined. Each of these theories refers to either one specific or various functional neuroanatomical levels and processes in error commissioning that are described in section A Cognitiv‘e View on Error Commission. The red lines denote feedback loops that mediate post-error neural mechanisms. (B) Illustration of the relative strength/stability of prefrontal representations and distractor saliency at the basal ganglia level. The maps indicate the strength/stability of the task goal representation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) as well as the saliency of a (distractor) stimulus at the perceptual/attentional level. As outlined in the text, it is assumed that both the stability of the PFC representations and the saliency of (distracting) stimuli are commonly represented in fronto-striatal networks. The heights of the respective “blobs” in the activation map are important. In the leftmost part of the figure, distractor information is likely to be canceled out because the stability of the prefrontal representation is high. In the right-most part of the figure, the distractor is highly salient and therefore likely leads to overwriting of the task-goal representation. Note that the figure is only an illustration of the core components described in the review; the underlying computations have only the function to stipulate the main points.