Processing of results in competitive situation : An event-related potential study

Abstract

To achieve the better performance, cognition of results is important during competition. It is assumed that there will be different information processing, depending on various situation of competition. Eventrelated potentials (ERPs) are useful to examine such cognitive activity. The amplitude of P300 can indicate the distribution of attentional resource, and latency is equivalent to evaluation time for stimulus. N400 reflect the semantic processing. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether processing of results in competition would differentiate between winning and losing, or between two following competitive situation: 1) to compete with visible another, 2) to compete with invisible anyone. The subjects were assigned randomly into visible or invisible group. EEG was recorded during they were engaged in reaction time task in the control and competitive conditions, respectively. P300 component was observed in both groups because the result of competition for RT was presented immediately after the response for S2. P300 amplitudes of winning trials in competitive condition were enhanced and latencies of losing trials had small delays in both groups. These may reflect their attention increased by motivation for win and feedback for next trial when they were losing. In visible group, N400 amplitudes of winning trials were larger than those of losing trials, while N400 of both trials had similar configurations in invisible group. The former may reflect that processing of results would be selected depending on winning or losing because much information of their competitors were available, and the later might indicate that the information of results would be processed repeatedly independently of winning or losing because of little information of their competitors. These findings suggest that an effort would be made to win in competitive situation, and that processing of results might alter to suit the competitive situation.