Researchers in Norway and the UK found that by monitoring brain patterns they could predict when people were likely to make mistakes in carrying out tasks.
The discovery could one day help people at work, for example those who have monotonous or repetitive jobs, to anticipate when they are more susceptible to making mistakes. Perhaps a device that monitors their brain pattern could alert them, the researchers said. Some tasks like passport control, where attention to detail is important but the repetitive and monotonous nature of the work can cause loss of focus, could benefit from such a device, they said.
The study is published in the 21st April online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and is the work of Dr Tom Eichele at the University of Bergen in Norway and Dr Stefan Debener at the University of Southampton in the UK, and colleagues.
Boring and monotonous work makes humans susceptible to mistakes that can lead to serious consequences, wrote the researchers, but scientists know little about what happens in the brain in the time leading up to the making of such errors.
Eichele, Debener and colleagues got participants to carry out tasks in rapid response to visual cues, while monitoring their brain activity using functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and other advanced techniques.
To their astonishment, the researchers found there was a noticeable change in brain activity that started about 30 seconds before an individual made a mistake in the task.
In particular, they noticed reduced activity in a part of the forebrain called the prefrontal cortex, which is normally active when performing tasks involving organising and planning.
And they also observed increased activity in the Default Mode Network (DMN), which is normally more active when the brain is at rest.
According to a BBC News report, Debener said:
“Up to 30 seconds before the mistake we could detect a distinct shift in activity.”
“The brain begins to economise, by investing less effort to complete the same task,” he explained.
The researchers found they were able to predict future errors based on what they observed in the brain patterns about 30 seconds before.
They concluded that:
“Our findings provide insights into the brain network dynamics preceding human performance errors and suggest that monitoring of the identified precursor states may help in avoiding human errors in critical real-world situations.”
However Debener emphasized that it could be another 10 to 15 years before a working device based on their discovery is available. In that time there also needs to be a lot more research, particularly in finding the underlying mechanisms that link changes in brain pattern to increased risk of mistakes and whether that link is causal or associated with a yet unknown third factor.
“Prediction of human errors by maladaptive changes in event-related brain networks.”
Tom Eichele, Stefan Debener, Vince D Calhoun, Karsten Specht, Andreas K Engel, Kenneth Hugdahl, D Yves von Cramon, and Markus Ullsperger.
PNAS published online on 22 April 2008, vol. 105, no. 16, pp 6173-6178.
10.1073/pnas.0708965105.
Sources: BBC, PNAS abstract.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD