Modulation of late alpha band oscillations by feedback in a hypothesis testing paradigm

We used the electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate whether positive and negative performance feedbacks differentially modulate late time-locked oscillatory brain activity in hypothesis testing. Ten college students serially tested hypotheses concerning a hidden rule by judging its presence or absence in triplets of digits, and revised them on the basis of an exogenous performance feedback. The EEG signal was convolved with a family of complex wavelets and induced brain potentials were extracted in the alpha range (8–13 Hz). The time-varying modulation of alpha activity time-locked to positive and negative feedback was analyzed in the 350–700 ms time-window. The results showed differential feedback-induced modulations of upper-alpha rhythms (≥ 10 Hz) between 450 and 700 ms in parieto-occipital and central regions, and of lower-alpha rhythms (< 10 Hz) between 350 and 450 ms in central regions. These results were interpreted in terms of differential functional roles of feedback in short-term memory and active inhibition/disinhibition of resources for subsequent hypothesis testing. Some implications for cognitive models of feedback are discussed.