Reorienting the mind: The impact of novel sounds on go/no-go performance.

Abstract

The present study explores the link between attentional reorienting and response inhibition. Recent behavioral and neuroscience work indicates that both might rely on similar cognitive and neural mechanisms. We tested 2 popular accounts of the overlap: The "circuit breaker" account, which assumes that unexpected events produce global suppression of motor output, and the "stimulus detection" account, which assumes that attention is reoriented to unexpected events. In Experiment 1, we presented standard and (unexpected) novel sounds in a go/no-go task. Consistent with the stimulus detection account, we found longer reaction times on go trials and higher rates of commission errors on no-go trials when these were preceded by a novel sound compared with a standard sound. In Experiment 2, novel and standard sounds acted as no-go signals. In this experiment, the novel sounds produced an improvement on no-go trials. This further highlights the importance of stimulus detection for response inhibition. Combined, the 2 experiments support the idea that attention is oriented to novel or unexpected events, impairing no-go performance if these events are irrelevant but enhancing no-go performance when they are relevant. Our findings also indicate that the popular circuit breaker account of the overlap between response inhibition and attentional reorienting needs some revision.

On the Globality of Motor Suppression: Unexpected Events and Their Influence on Behavior and Cognition

“…However, if the ITI is long enough, this interruption could benefit processing: if the source and nature of the unexpectedness (error) can be fully resolved, the task-set could be re-instantiated and the next trial could be performed more accurately and with a reduced RT delay. Note that our theory of a short-lived motor suppression also explains why inserting a NoGo (stopping) condition after an unexpected event does not necessarily improve stopping (Leiva et al, 2015). Note also that our theory predicts that an unexpected event induces a two-stage ‘hit’ on task-set (working memory) (Figure 7).…”

“…For example, post-error slowing is highly dependent on the timing of the next stimulus after an action error (Jentzsch and Dudschig, 2009), and the effect of unexpected events on subsequent inhibitory control of motor activity highly depends on the relative timing of the processes (Leiva et al, 2015). We propose that signal detection, inhibition, attentional orienting, and the potential suppression of ongoing cognitive representations (such as task sets) are all part of a tightly linked cascade of interacting neural processes.…”

How to withhold or replace a prepotent response: An analysis of the underlying control processes and their temporal dynamics

“…Based on our present results, and previous behavioral (e.g. Leiva, Parmentier, Elchlepp, & Verbruggen, 2015;Verbruggen, Stevens, et al, 2015), computational (e.g. Boucher et al, 2007;Salinas & Sanford, 2013), ERP (e.g.…”

Inhibition and Mathematical Performance: Poorly Correlated, Poorly Measured, or Poorly Matched?

“…Recent work on deviance distraction (e.g., Hughes, Hurlstone, Marsh, Vachon, & Jones, 2013), in which participants heard infrequently occurring sounds with more predictable auditory distractors, has provided more information. Deviance distraction related poorly to both go/no go tasks (Leiva, Parmentier, Elchlepp, & Verbruggen, 2015) and stop signal tasks (Leiva, Andr es, Servera, Verbruggen, & Parmentier, 2016), suggesting that deviance distraction tasks capture different processes required for controlling interference. Researchers need to test whether susceptibility to such deviance distraction is related more strongly to mathematical performance than traditional inhibition tasks.…”