Premovement high‐alpha power is modulated by previous movement errors: Indirect evidence to endorse high‐alpha power as a marker of resource allocation during motor programming

Abstract

Previous electroencephalographic studies have identified premovement high‐alpha power as a predictor of movement accuracy; less frontal‐central high‐alpha power is associated with accurate movements (e.g., holed golf putts), and could reflect more cognitive resources being allocated to response programming. The present experiment tested this interpretation. Ten expert and ten novice golfers completed 120 putts while high‐alpha power was recorded and analyzed as a function of whether the previous putt was holed (i.e., a correct response) or missed (i.e., an error). Existing evidence indicates that more resources are allocated to response programming following errors. We observed less premovement high‐alpha power following errors, especially in experts. Our findings provide indirect evidence that high‐alpha power is an inverse marker of the amount of resources allocated to motor response programming.