Towards a taxonomy of inhibition-related processes: A dual-task approach (original) (raw)
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Cognitive Control Reflects Context Monitoring, Not Motoric Stopping, in Response Inhibition
PLoS ONE, 2012
The inhibition of unwanted behaviors is considered an effortful and controlled ability. However, inhibition also requires the detection of contexts indicating that old behaviors may be inappropriate -in other words, inhibition requires the ability to monitor context in the service of goals, which we refer to as context-monitoring. Using behavioral, neuroimaging, electrophysiological and computational approaches, we tested whether motoric stopping per se is the cognitivelycontrolled process supporting response inhibition, or whether context-monitoring may fill this role. Our results demonstrate that inhibition does not require control mechanisms beyond those involved in context-monitoring, and that such control mechanisms are the same regardless of stopping demands. These results challenge dominant accounts of inhibitory control, which posit that motoric stopping is the cognitively-controlled process of response inhibition, and clarify emerging debates on the frontal substrates of response inhibition by replacing the centrality of controlled mechanisms for motoric stopping with context-monitoring. Citation: Chatham CH, Claus ED, Kim A, Curran T, Banich MT, et al. (2012) Cognitive Control Reflects Context Monitoring, Not Motoric Stopping, in Response Inhibition. PLoS ONE 7(2): e31546.
Stopping while going! Response inhibition does not suffer dual-task interference
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2012
Although dual-task interference is ubiquitous in a variety of task domains, stop-signal studies suggest that response inhibition is not subject to such interference. Nevertheless, no study has directly examined stopsignal performance in a dual-task setting. In two experiments, stop-signal performance was examined in a psychological refractory period task, in which subjects inhibited one response while still executing the other. The results showed little evidence for the refractory effect in stop-signal reaction time, and stop-signal reaction time was similar in dual-task and single-task conditions, despite the fact that overt reaction times were significantly affected by dual-task interference. Therefore, the present study supports the claim that response inhibition does not suffer dual-task interference.
Long-term aftereffects of response inhibition: Memory retrieval, task goals, and cognitive control
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2008
Cognitive control theories attribute control to executive processes that adjust and control behavior online. Theories of automaticity attribute control to memory retrieval. In the present study, online adjustments and memory retrieval were examined, and their roles in controlling performance in the stop-signal paradigm were elucidated. There was evidence of short-term response time adjustments after unsuccessful stopping. In addition, it was found that memory retrieval can slow responses for 1-20 trials after successful inhibition, which suggests the automatic retrieval of task goals. On the basis of these findings, the authors concluded that cognitive control can rely on both memory retrieval and executive processes.
NeuroImage, 2011
Neuroimaging studies have utilized two primary tasks to assess motor response inhibition, a major form of inhibitory control: the Go/NoGo (GNG) task and the Stop-Signal Task (SST). It is unclear, however, whether these two tasks engage identical neural systems. This question is critical because assumptions that both tasks are measuring the same cognitive construct have theoretical and practical implications. Many papers have focused on a right hemisphere dominance for response inhibition, with the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) receiving the bulk of attention. Others have emphasized the role of the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). The current study performed separate quantitative meta-analyses using the Activation Likelihood Estimate (ALE) method to uncover the common and distinctive clusters of activity in GNG and SST. Major common clusters of activation were located in the right anterior insula and the pre-SMA. Insular activation was right hemisphere dominant in GNG but more bilaterally distributed in SST. Differences between the tasks were observed in two major cognitive control networks: (1) the fronto-parietal network that mediates adaptive online control, and (2) the cingulo-opercular network implicated in maintaining task set (Dosenbach et al., 2007) and responding to salient stimuli (Seeley et al., 2007). GNG engaged the fronto-parietal control network to a greater extent than SST, with prominent foci located in the right MFG and right inferior parietal lobule. Conversely, SST engaged the cingulo-opercular control network to a greater extent, with more pronounced activations in the left anterior insula and bilateral thalamus. The present results reveal the anterior insula's importance in response inhibition tasks and confirm the role of the pre-SMA. Furthermore, GNG and SST tasks are not completely identical measures of response inhibition, as they engage overlapping but distinct neural circuits. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Pinning down response inhibition in the brain — Conjunction analyses of the Stop-signal task
NeuroImage, 2010
Successful behavior requires a finely-tuned interplay of initiating and inhibiting motor programs to react effectively to constantly changing environmental demands. One particularly useful paradigm for investigating inhibitory motor control is the Stop-signal task, where already-initiated responses to Gostimuli are to be inhibited upon the rapid subsequent presentation of a Stop-stimulus (yielding successful and unsuccessful Stop-trials). Despite the extensive use of this paradigm in functional neuroimaging, there is no consensus on which functional comparison to use to characterize response-inhibition-related brain activity. Here, we utilize conjunction analyses of successful and unsuccessful Stop-trials that are each contrasted against a reference condition. This conjunction approach identifies processes common to both Stop-trial types while excluding processes specific to either, thereby capitalizing on the presence of some response-inhibition-related activity in both conditions. Using this approach on fMRI data from human subjects, we identify a network of brain structures that was linked to both types of Stop-trials, including lateral-inferior frontal and medial frontal cortical areas and the caudate nucleus. In addition, comparisons with a reference condition matched for visual stimulation identified additional activity in the right inferior parietal cortex that may play a role in enhancing the processing of the Stop-stimuli. Finally, differences in stopping efficacy across subjects were associated with variations in activity in the left anterior insula. However, this region was also associated with general task accuracy (which furthermore correlated directly with stopping efficacy), suggesting that it might actually reflect a more general mechanism of performance control that supports response inhibition in a relatively nonspecific way.
No training effects of top-down controlled response inhibition by practicing on the stop-signal task
The aim of the current study is to examine if the top-down controlled response inhibition on a stop-signal task (SST) can be trained. Results from previous studies have been equivocal, possibly because signal-response combinations are often not varied across training and test phases, allowing bottom-up signal-response associations to be formed that may improve response inhibition. The current study compared the response inhibition on the SST in a pre-test and post-test in an experimental group (EG) and control group (CG). In between tests, the EG received ten training sessions on the SST with varying signal-response combinations that were also different from the combinations in the test phase. The CG received ten training sessions on the choice reaction time task. Results failed to reveal a decrease in stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) during and after training, with Bayesian analyses revealing anecdotal and substantial evidence for the null hypothesis during and after training, respectively. Yet, the EG did show smaller go reaction times (Go_RT) and stop signal delays (SSD) after training. The results indicate that the top-down controlled response inhibition is difficult or impossible to improve.
Response inhibition in the stop-signal paradigm
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2008
Response inhibition is a hallmark of executive control. The concept refers to the suppression of nolonger required or inappropriate actions, which supports flexible and goal-directed behavior in everchanging environments. The stop-signal paradigm is most suitable for the study of response inhibition in a laboratory setting. The paradigm has become increasingly popular in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and psychopathology. We review recent findings in the stop-signal literature with the specific aim of demonstrating how each of these different fields contributes to better understanding of the processes involved in inhibiting a response and monitoring stopping performance, and more generally, discovering how behavior is controlled. People can readily stop talking, walking, typing, etc., in response to changes in internal states or changes in the environment. This ability to inhibit inappropriate or irrelevant responses is a hallmark of executive control. The role of inhibition in many experimental paradigms is debated, but most researchers agree that some kind of inhibition is involved in deliberately stopping a motor response. In this article, we focus on the stop-signal paradigm [1], which has proven to be a useful tool for the study of response inhibition in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and psychopathology. We review recent developments in the stop-signal paradigm in these different fields. The focus is primarily on the inhibition of manual responses. Studies of oculomotor inhibition are discussed in Box 1. Successful stopping: Inhibition and performance monitoring In the stop-signal paradigm, subjects perform a go task, such as reporting the identity of a stimulus. Occasionally, the go stimulus is followed by a stop signal, which instructs subjects to withhold the response (see Figure 1). Stopping a response requires a fast control mechanism that prevents the execution of the motor response [1]. This process interacts with slower control mechanisms that monitor and adjust performance [2]. The race between going and stopping Performance in the stop-signal paradigm is modeled as a race between a go process, which is triggered by the presentation of the go stimulus, and a stop process, which is triggered by the presentation of the stop signal. When the stop process finishes before the go process, the response is inhibited; when the go processes finishes before the stop process, the response is emitted. The latency of the stop process (stop-signal reaction time; SSRT) is covert and must
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/ …, 2008
Performance of task sequences is assumed to rely on activation and inhibition of tasks. An empirical marker of task inhibition is the so-called n Ϫ 2 repetition cost, which is assessed by comparing performance in trial n Ϫ 2 task repetitions (i.e., ABA) with that in n Ϫ 2 task switches (i.e., CBA). Current theoretical accounts assume that inhibition acts on the level of task representations (i.e., task sets). However, another potential target of task inhibition could be the representation of the task cue. To decide between these two alternatives, the authors used a 2:1 cue-to-task mapping design. They found significant n Ϫ 2 task repetition costs both with n Ϫ 2 cue repetitions and n Ϫ 2 cue switches. These costs were about equal (Experiment 1), and this data pattern was found for both short and long cuing intervals (Experiment 2). Together, the data suggest that task inhibition acts on task sets and not on cue representations.
Strategic modulation of response inhibition in task-switching
Frontiers in Psychology, 2013
Residual activations from previous task performance usually prime the system toward response repetition. However, when the task switches, the repetition of a response (RR) produces longer reaction times and higher error rates. Some researchers assumed that these RR costs reflect strategic inhibition of just executed responses and that this serves for preventing perseveration errors. We investigated whether the basic level of response inhibition is adapted to the overall risk of response perseveration. In a series of 3 experiments, we presented different proportions of stimuli that carry either a high or a low risk of perseveration. Additionally, the discriminability of high-and low-risk stimuli was varied. The results indicate that individuals apply several processing and control strategies, depending on the mixture of stimulus types. When discriminability was high, control was adapted on a trial-by trial basis, which presumably reduces mental effort (Experiment 1). When trial-based strategies were prevented, RR costs for low-risk stimuli varied with the overall proportion of high-risk stimuli (Experiments 2 and 3), indicating an adaptation of the basic level of response inhibition.