Dynamic modulation of the processing of unpredicted technical errors by the posterior cingulate and the default mode network

Abstract

The pervasive use of information technologies (IT) has tremendously benefited our daily lives. However, unpredicted technical breakdowns and errors can lead to the experience of stress, which has been termed technostress. It remains poorly understood how people dynamically respond to unpredicted system runtime errors occurring while interacting with the IT systems on a behavioral and neuronal level. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying such processes, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which 15 young adults solved arithmetic problems of three difficulty levels (easy, medium and hard) while two types of system runtime errors (problem errors and feedback errors) occurred in an unexpected manner. The problem error condition consisted of apparently defective displays of the arithmetic problem and the feedback error condition involved erroneous feedback. We found that the problem errors positively influenced participants’ problem-solving performance at the high difficulty level (i.e., hard tasks) at the initial stage of the session, while feedback errors disturbed their performance. These dynamic behavioral changes are mainly associated with brain activation changes in the posterior cingulate and the default mode network, including the posterior cingulate cortex, the mPFC, the retrosplenial cortex and the parahippocampal gyrus. Our study illustrates the regulatory role of the posterior cingulate in coping with unpredicted errors as well as with dynamic changes in the environment.