Measuring Inhibitory Control without Requiring Reading Skill

Abstract

For two paper-pencil versions of inhibitory tasks that require no reading skill, this study investigated the performance of young adults with no disability. Experiment 1 examined performance on same-different tasks by 42 participants. Three conditions were administered, all of which used geometric shapes: the same (no interference) condition, which asked each participant to check the same items as the target stimuli; the different (interference) condition, which asked to check the different items from the target stimuli while inhibiting the prepotent tendency of checking the same; and the motor condition, which measured motor speed. Results showed the highest performance in the motor condition and the lowest in the different condition. Experiment 2 examined performances of 43 participants on the flanker task, which asked participants to check the same arrow as the target placed in the middle of five arrows in line. Four conditions were administered: the same (no interference) condition, in which all five arrows pointed to the same direction; the different (interference) condition, in which the four arrows flanking the target pointed to the opposite direction against it; the partially different (interference) condition, in which one of the four arrows flanking pointed to the opposite direction; and the motor condition, which measured motor speed. Results showed the highest performance for the motor condition and the lowest for the different and partially different conditions, among which the differences were not significant. These results suggest that the two inhibitory tasks developed in this study are easy to administer and useful for people with little or no reading ability. Results demonstrate that the same-different task might be more inhibitory-demanding than the flanker task. ＜Key-words＞inhibition, same-different task, flanker task, normative data, paper-pencil okuzumi@u-gakugei.ac.jp(Hideyuki OKUZUMI) Asian J Human Services, 2015, 8:13-19.