Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Conflict monitoring versus selection-for-action in anterior cingulate cortex

Nature volume 402, pages 179–181 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), on the medial surface of the frontal lobes of the brain, is widely believed to be involved in the regulation of attention1,2. Beyond this, however, its specific contribution to cognition remains uncertain. One influential theory has interpreted activation within the ACC as reflecting ‘selection-for-action’3,4,5, a set of processes that guide the selection of environmental objects as triggers of or targets for action. We have proposed an alternative hypothesis, in which the ACC serves not to exert top-down attentional control but instead to detect and signal the occurrence of conflicts in information processing6,7,8. Here, to test this theory against the selection-for-action theory, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activation during performance of a task where, for a particular subset of trials, the strength of selection-for-action is inversely related to the degree of response conflict. Activity within the ACC was greater during trials featuring high levels of conflict (and weak selection-for-action) than during trials with low levels of conflict (and strong selection-for-action), providing evidence in favour of the conflict-monitoring account of ACC function.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2: Location of the ACC area displaying greater activity on incompatible than compatible trials and on cI than iI trials.
Figure 3: Time-course of activity within the region shown in Fig. 2.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. D'Esposito,M. et al. The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory. Nature 378, 279–281 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Posner,M. I. & DiGirolamo,G. J. in The Attentive Brain (ed. Parasuraman, R.) 401–423 (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Frith,C. D., Friston,K. J., Liddle,P. F. & Frackowiak,R. S. J. Willed action and the prefrontal cortex in man: A study with PET. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 244, 241–246 (1991).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Petersen,S. E., Fox,P. T., Posner,M. I., Mintun,M. & Raichle,M. E. Positron emission tomography studies of the processing of single words. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 1, 153–170 (1989).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Posner,M. I., Petersen,S. E., Fox,P. T. & Raichle,M. E. Localization of operations in the human brain. Science 240, 1627–1631 (1988).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Botvinick,M. M., Braver,T. S., Carter,C. S., Barch,D. M. & Cohen,J. D. Evaluating the demand for control: Anterior cigulate cortex and crosstalk monitoring. (Technical Report 98.1, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1998).

  7. Carter,C. S. et al. Anterior cingulate cortex, error detection, and the on-line monitoring of performance. Science 280, 747–749 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Berns,G. S., Cohen,J. D. & Mintun,M. A. Brain regions responsive to novelty in the absence of awareness. Science 276, 1272–1275 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Eriksen,B. A. & Eriksen,C. W. Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Percept. Psychophys. 16, 143–149 (1974).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Cohen,J. D., Servan-Schreiber,D. & McClelland,J. L. A parallel distributed processing approach to automaticity. Am. J. Psychol. 105, 239–269 (1992).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Coles,M. G. H., Gratton,G., Bashore,T. R., Eriksen,C. W. & Donchin,E. A psychophysiological investigation of the continuous flow model of human information processing. J. Exp. Psychol. Human Percept. Perform. 11, 529–553 (1985).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Allport,A. in Perspectives on Perception and Action (eds Heuer, H. & Sanders, A. F.) 395–419 (Lawrence Eribaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Gratton,G., Coles,M. G. H. & Donchin,E. Optimizing the use of information: strategic control of activation and responses. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 4, 480–506 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Kwong,K. K. et al. Dynamic magnetic resonance imaging of human brain activity during primary sensory stimulation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 89, 5675–5679 (1992).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Carter,C. S. et al. Strategic vs. evaluative contributions of the anterior cingulate cortex to executive processes of cognition. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci USA (submitted).

  16. Casey,B. J. et al. Ventral and dorsal prefrontal activity as a function of target probability. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 10 (Suppl., Annual meeting abstract program), 108 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Cohen,J. D., MacWhinney,B., Flatt,M. & Provost,J. PsyScope: An interactive graphical system for designing and controlling experiments in the psychology laboratory using Macintosh computers. Behav. Res. Methods Instr. Comput. 25, 257–271 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Noll,D., Cohen,J. D., Meyer,C. H. & Schneider,W. Spiral K-space MR imaging of cortical activation. J. Magn. Reson. Imag. 5, 49–56 (1995).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Woods,R. P., Cherry,S. R. & Mazziotta,J. C. Rapid automated algorithm for aligning and reslicing PET images. J. Comput. Assist. Tomog. 16, 620–633 (1992).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Forman,S. D. et al. Improved assessment of significant activation in function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): use of a cluster-size threshold. Magn. Reson. Med. 33, 636–647 (1995).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank D. Noll for technical assistance. This work was supported by NARSAD, NSF, NIMH and the Fetzer Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, 15213, Pennsylvania

    Matthew Botvinick

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 3811 O'Hara St., Pittsburgh, USA, 15213, Pennsylvania

    Matthew Botvinick, Cameron S. Carter & Jonathan D. Cohen

  3. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, USA, 08544-1010, New Jersey

    Leigh E. Nystrom & Jonathan D. Cohen

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, 405 Langley Hall, Pittsburgh, USA, 15260, Pennsylvania

    Kate Fissell

Authors
  1. Matthew Botvinick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Leigh E. Nystrom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kate Fissell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Cameron S. Carter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jonathan D. Cohen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthew Botvinick.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Botvinick, M., Nystrom, L., Fissell, K. et al. Conflict monitoring versus selection-for-action in anterior cingulate cortex. Nature 402, 179–181 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/46035

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/46035

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing