The role of stop‐signal probability and expectation in proactive inhibition

Abstract

The subjective belief of what will happen plays an important role across many cognitive domains, including response inhibition. However, tasks that study inhibition do not distinguish between the processing of objective contextual cues indicating stop-signal probability and the subjective expectation that a stop-signal will or will not occur. Here we investigated the effects of stop-signal probability and the expectation of a stop-signal on proactive inhibition. Twenty participants performed a modified stop-signal anticipation task while being scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging. At the beginning of each trial, the stop-signal probability was indicated by a cue (0% or > 0%), and participants had to indicate whether they expected a stop-signal to occur (yes/no/don't know). Participants slowed down responding on trials with a > 0% stop-signal probability, but this proactive response slowing was even greater when they expected a stop-signal to occur. Analyses were performed in brain regions previously associated with proactive inhibition. Activation in the striatum, supplementary motor area and left dorsal premotor cortex during the cue period was increased when participants expected a stop-signal to occur. In contrast, activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal cortex activity during the stimulus-response period was related to the processing of contextual cues signalling objective stop-signal probability, regardless of expectation. These data show that proactive inhibition depends on both the processing of objective contextual task information and the subjective expectation of stop-signals.

Temporal Dynamics of Proactive and Reactive Motor Inhibition

“…This slowing is in line with previous work (Verbruggen and Logan, 2008; Jahfari et al, 2012; Zandbelt et al, 2013; Vink et al, 2015). Moreover, participants committed more premature errors during the CG than during in the MS condition.…”

“…However prefrontal activity was not elicited in a sustained manner before target onset, but only transiently after target signals. This is against the predictions of the DMC, but dovetails recent findings in other motor inhibition paradigms (Swann et al, 2012, 2013; Zandbelt et al, 2013; Vink et al, 2015). In the following, we will first discuss behavioral results and then refer to results pertaining to the different aspects of proactive and reactive control implied in the DMC model, namely visual attention, prefrontal control and sensorimotor activity.…”

Steady-state and dynamic network modes for perceptual expectation

“…This indicates that response modulation results from the interplay between FFA_R and these high-level areas. This type of interplay is supported by previous studies that demonstrated the inferior frontal and parietal cortices to be involved in probability-related processing222324. Therefore, through the identification of the involvement of the high-level areas IFG_L and IPL_L, the present study indicates that response enhancement and repetition suppression are attributable to top-down modulation more directly than previous studies did and suggests a brain network related to perceptual expectation1125.…”

A dual but asymmetric role of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in response inhibition and switching from a non-salient to salient action

“…This replicates previous findings of increasing RT with higher proportions of stop trials in the SST or no-go trials in the Go-NoGo paradigm (Wijeakumar et al, 2015; Zandbelt and Vink, 2010). However, SSRT did not significantly differ between the two experimental conditions, suggesting that whether or not stopping was the more frequent response did not alter the efficiency of response inhibition, again replicating previous work (Vink et al, 2015; Zandbelt et al, 2013). …”