Discussion : understanding ERP components and behaviour in two-choice paradigms

![CDATA[This is an interesting symposium in which ERP components and behaviour in a range of two-choice tasks are explored within the framework of a sequential processing schema. The four papers endeavour to illustrate the insights that can be obtained from the ERPs in a range of paradigms via the use of PCA as an objective decomposition technique. The first paper, by Barry, sets the stage, by bringing us up to date from the 2013-2015 introductory schema papers. The second paper, by De Blasio and colleagues, supports the utilisation of separate PCAs to quantify ERP components of within subject condition data when systematic component or subcomponent latency differences are involved. Fogarty and colleagues in their interesting paper, give empirical support to the recent outcomes from Barry and De Blasio’s 2015 paper in children, and verify the important active role of the N2 and P3 subcomponents in young adults, thus clarifying the contributions of these components in the sequential processing schema. In the fourth paper Steiner et al. investigate how the proposed processing schema, derived from an equiprobable auditory Go/NoGo task in young adults, applies to a visual oddball task in older adults. This shift in paradigm illustrates the generalisability and limits of the sequential processing schema, and is important in charting the way forward. The promising insights illustrated in this thought-provoking symposium have opened up some questions on the functional importance of these results to the burgeoning field of cognitive neuroscience. Perhaps this is an area that can be focused on during discussion.]]