Additional support for our interpretation that these enhanced evoked potentials thought to arise from medial–frontal brain regions (Niki and Watanabe 1979; Gehring et al. 1993; Dehaene et al. 1994; Kiehl et al. 2000; Carter and van Veen 2007), reflect an elicited compensatory mechanism in alcoholics, derives from the observation that larger negative ERN amplitudes in alcoholics were associated with greater accuracy. While, the correlational nature of the data require this interpretation to be made cautiously, it is however, supportive of evidence from other studies suggesting that the ERN is enhanced when accuracy is emphasized over speeded responses (Falkenstein et al. 1991; Gehring et al. 1993) and with the finding that the ERN increases as the certitude that an error was committed also increases (Dehaene et al. 1994; Luu et al. 2000a, b). Also consistent with our interpretation is the observation that the ERN increases with learning (Holroyd and Coles 2002). This electrical potential is thought to reflect the development of an internal representation of the correct response so that a greater mismatch exists between the representation of the correct and incorrect response (Holroyd and Coles 2002), thereby increasing the likelihood of performing the task accurately.
