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Brain oscillations and synchrony in neurocognitive systems centered exactly around 10 Hz. The interpretation that this signal reflected crossmodal integration was corroborated by the observation that the strength of alpha audiovisual coupling correlated with performance measures thought to reflect the degree to which subjects integrated the temporal information of the multimodal stimuli.

The second cognitive theme of this thesis is cognitive control, with a focus on response conflict in particular. Bottom-up processing of incoming sensory information may often activate multiple response alternatives, while only one is appropriate given the task instructions. This specific situation, together with response errors, negative response feedback or punishment could collectively be regarded as comprising a conflict between one’s desired action and the actual outcome. Conflict elicits an avalanche of performance-related processes, including the detection of the presence of conflict, the selection of the appropriate action in addition to the suppression of the to-be-inhibited inappropriate action, and the monitoring of the eventual performance outcome. Together these are referred to as cognitive control. We can learn more about how cognitive control is implemented in the brain by studying brain oscillations, because 1) these cognitive processes are extremely rapid yet computationally effortful, and 2) these computations have to be implemented by a tightly linked yet spatially distributed network of primarily frontal brain regions. Recent theories on the electrophysiological mechanisms that underly cognitive control posit that synchronized theta band (4-8 Hz …