The influence of perceptual and semantic categorization on inhibitory processing as measured by the N2–P3 response

Abstract

In daily activities, humans must attend and respond to a range of important items and inhibit and not respond to unimportant distractions. Our current understanding of these processes is largely based on perceptually simple stimuli. This study investigates the interaction of conceptual-semantic categorization and inhibitory processing using Event Related Potentials (ERPs). Participants completed three Go-NoGo tasks that increased systematically in the degree of conceptual-semantic information necessary to respond correctly (from single items to categories of objects and animals). Findings indicate that the N2 response reflects inhibitory processing but does not change significantly with task difficulty. The P3 NoGo amplitude, on the other hand, is attenuated by task difficulty. Further, the latency of the peak of the P3 NoGo response elicited by the most difficult task is significantly later than are the peaks detected during performance of the other two tasks. Thus, the level of complexity of conceptual-semantic representations influences inhibitory processing in a systematic way. This inhibition paradigm may be a key for investigating inhibitory dysfunction in patient populations. KeywordsEvent Related Potentials; inhibition; N2-P3; Go-NoGo; object-animal categorization; visual categorization; conceptual difficulty Everyday functioning requires the ability to successfully inhibit irrelevant stimuli, thoughts, and behaviors (Logan & Cowan, 1984;Posner & DiGirolamo, 1998). To date, research on Corresponding Author: Mandy J. Maguire, Ph.D., Callier Center for Communication Disorders, University of Texas at Dallas, 1966 Inwood Rd., Dallas, TX 75235, mandy.maguire@utdallas.edu, Phone: (214) Fax: (214)905-3006. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBrain Cogn. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 December 1. Published in final edited form as:Brain Cogn. 2009 December ; 71(3): 196-203. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.018. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript response inhibition has started to localize some of the basic neural processes associated with this behavior (Folstein & van Petten, 2008or Mostofsky & Simmonds, 2008 for review). However, despite the real world implications of successful and unsuccessful inhibition, as reported in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Barkley, 1997; Luu & Tucker, 2002) and healthy aging (Hasher & Quig, 1997), little work has focused on how response inhibition changes as tasks become conceptually more abstract: for example, knowing to stop the car...

Sentential Negation Might Share Neurophysiological Mechanisms with Action Inhibition. Evidence from Frontal Theta Rhythm

“…2 illustrates, in Experiment 1, NoGo trials elicited larger negative amplitudes than Go trials between 232 and 416 ms after the Go/NoGo cue onset (T (maxsum) ϭ 2580.5, p Ͻ 0.001). The timing of this effect, along with the direction of the differences, were consistent with the extensively reported enhanced N2 activity for NoGo conditions (Bokura et al, 2001;Bruin and Wijers, 2002;Maguire et al, 2009). In addition, at a later time interval (420 -680 ms), NoGo trials showed larger positive amplitudes than Go trials in frontocentral sites (T (maxsum) ϭ 1598.3, p Ͻ 0.001), thereby replicating the frontocentral distribution of P3 typically obtained in Go/ NoGo paradigms.…”

“…One representative experimental paradigm to analyze response inhibition is the classical Go/NoGo task, in which Go trials induce a prepotent response, whereas NoGo trials require a response suppression or inhibition. Electrophysiological studies have shown enhanced N2 and P3 components of the ERP over frontocentral electrodes as signatures of response inhibition (Bokura et al, 2001;Smith et al, 2008;Maguire et al, 2009). Moreover, time-frequency analysis of the EEG signal usually obtains power enhancement in the theta band (4 -7 Hz) over frontocentral sites and sometimes in the delta band (1-3 Hz) over centro-parietal sites for the NoGo condition (Nigbur et al, 2011;Huster et al, 2013;Cohen, 2014;Harper et al, 2014), probably indexing conflict detection and response evaluation processes, respectively (Huster et al, 2013;Harper et al, 2014).…”

Frontal theta and alpha power and coherence changes are modulated by semantic complexity in Go/NoGo tasks

“…Previous investigations have shown that stimulus degradation affecting perceptual differentiation in Go/NoGo tasks can modulate ERP responses, with the least degraded stimuli eliciting the largest ERP response (Kok, 1986). Beyond perceptual distinctions, it was found that the level of semantic abstractness of Go and NoGo stimuli type (i.e., cars and dogs versus objects and animals) influenced the frontal N2/P3 complex (Maguire et al, 2009). Maguire et al found that the abstractness of object identification and categorization influenced only the P3 NoGo ERP response, leading to the conclusion that the neural loci that mediate each of the major components (semantic and response inhibition) of the task were interacting in the performance of the task.…”

“…The behavioral data for this task have been published previously (Maguire et al, 2009) and are summarized here (see Table 1). Analysis of the response time (RT) showed that the Semantic-category task had a significantly longer RT than the other two tasks.…”

Event-Related Brain Potentials in the Study of Inhibition: Cognitive Control, Source Localization and Age-Related Modulations

“…For both the N2 (typically the N2b) and P3 (typically the P3a) components, larger amplitudes have been identified when inhibiting a response compared with executing a response (Maguire et al 2009). The relationship between the N2, the P3, and inhibitory processing remains a matter of debate (Bruin et al 2001;Smith et al 2007).…”