Dissociable Components of Cognitive Control: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study of Response Inhibition and Interference Suppression

PLOS ONE, Dec 2019

Background Cognitive control refers to the ability to selectively attend and respond to task-relevant events while resisting interference from distracting stimuli or prepotent automatic responses. The current study aimed to determine whether interference suppression and response inhibition are separable component processes of cognitive control. Methodology/Principal Findings Fourteen young adults completed a hybrid Go/Nogo flanker task and continuous EEG data were recorded concurrently. The incongruous flanker condition (that required interference suppression) elicited a more centrally distributed topography with a later N2 peak than the Nogo condition (that required response inhibition). Conclusions/Significance These results provide evidence for the dissociability of interference suppression and response inhibition, indicating that taxonomy of inhibition is warranted with the integration of research evidence from neuroscience.

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Dissociable Components of Cognitive Control: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study of Response Inhibition and Interference Suppression

et al. (2012) Dissociable Components of Cognitive Control: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study of Response Inhibition and Interference Suppression. PLoS ONE 7(3): e34482. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034482 Dissociable Components of Cognitive Control: An Event- Related Potential (ERP) Study of Response Inhibition and Interference Suppression Christopher R. Brydges 0 Karen Clunies-Ross 0 Madeleine Clohessy 0 Zhao Li Lo 0 An Nguyen 0 Claire Rousset 0 Patrick Whitelaw 0 Yit Jing Yeap 0 Allison M. Fox 0 Pedro Antonio Valdes-Sosa, Cuban Neuroscience Center, Cuba 0 1 School of Psychology, University of Western Australia , Perth , Australia , 2 Neurocognitive Development Unit, University of Western Australia , Perth , Australia Background: Cognitive control refers to the ability to selectively attend and respond to task-relevant events while resisting interference from distracting stimuli or prepotent automatic responses. The current study aimed to determine whether interference suppression and response inhibition are separable component processes of cognitive control. Methodology/Principal Findings: Fourteen young adults completed a hybrid Go/Nogo flanker task and continuous EEG data were recorded concurrently. The incongruous flanker condition (that required interference suppression) elicited a more centrally distributed topography with a later N2 peak than the Nogo condition (that required response inhibition). Conclusions/Significance: These results provide evidence for the dissociability of interference suppression and response inhibition, indicating that taxonomy of inhibition is warranted with the integration of research evidence from neuroscience. - Funding: Funding support was provided for equipment by the Australian Research Council DP0665616 (http://www.arc.gov.au/) and the School of Psychology, University of Western Australia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Cognitive control refers to the ability to selectively attend and respond to task-relevant events while resisting interference from distracting stimuli or prepotent automatic responses [1,2]. Interest in the study of inhibitory processes has increased in the past two decades [3], reflecting the importance of inhibition in everyday cognition, and, ultimately, for successful living [4]. More recently, associations between inhibition and other executive functions, particularly updating and shifting have been studied in more depth [5,6]. Despite a growing amount of research interest in the area [7,8], there is still considerable debate as to the separability of the subprocesses of inhibition. Several theorists have proposed that, from a behavioural perspective, inhibition should be viewed as a group of separable, yet related, subprocesses [9,10,11]. Nigg proposed that there are four types of inhibition in cognitive psychology [11]; however, the present study focuses on only two of these: response inhibition, which involves the suppression of prepotent behavioural responses (as is required in a Go/Nogo task), and interference suppression, which is the active prevention of interference due to stimulus competition (such as that observed in a flanker task). Van Boxtel, van der Molen, Jennings, and Brunia [12] proposed an alternate, but not necessarily conflicting theory of inhibitory processing, where inhibition is classified as selective (i.e. an event in which a response has to be made, but is not prepotent) or nonselective, when no response is required [12]. This theory may be considered parallel to Niggs taxonomy, as many tasks thought to measure response inhibition (such as Go/ Nogo and stop-signal tasks) require nonselective inhibition, whereas tasks requiring interference suppression (such as Stroop and flanker tasks) require selective inhibition. However, a key difference between these processes is the time required for each process to be completed, as it is reasoned that selective inhibition takes longer due to it requiring discrimination; that is, on a forced-choice task, a choice still has to be made [13]. Although other prominent theories of inhibition [9,10] use different terminology, they each converge upon the theory that inhibition refers to several related yet distinct processes, as opposed to a unitary construct. Evidence from a variety of perspectives has been put forward in support of a unitary view of inhibition. From a behavioural perspective, Friedman and Miyake created latent variables of prepotent response inhibition and resistance to distracter interference and reported that that model fit was not significantly worse when the two variables were collapsed into one [8]. Verbruggen, Liefooghe, and Vandierendock used a combined flanker/stopsignal task to determine whether there was overlap between the processes of response inhibition and interference sup (...truncated)


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Christopher R. Brydges, Karen Clunies-Ross, Madeleine Clohessy, Zhao Li Lo, An Nguyen, Claire Rousset, Patrick Whitelaw, Yit Jing Yeap, Allison M. Fox. Dissociable Components of Cognitive Control: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study of Response Inhibition and Interference Suppression, PLOS ONE, 2012, 3, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034482