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. 2016 Jan;42(1):115-37.
doi: 10.1037/xhp0000116. Epub 2015 Aug 31.

Should I stop or should I go? The role of associations and expectancies

Maisy Best, Natalia S Lawrence  1 , Gordon D Logan  2 , Ian P L McLaren  1 , Frederick Verbruggen  1
Affiliations

Should I stop or should I go? The role of associations and expectancies

Maisy Best et al. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2016 Jan.

Erratum in

Abstract

Following exposure to consistent stimulus-stop mappings, response inhibition can become automatized with practice. What is learned is less clear, even though this has important theoretical and practical implications. A recent analysis indicates that stimuli can become associated with a stop signal or with a stop goal. Furthermore, expectancy may play an important role. Previous studies that have used stop or no-go signals to manipulate stimulus-stop learning cannot distinguish between stimulus-signal and stimulus-goal associations, and expectancy has not been measured properly. In the present study, participants performed a task that combined features of the go/no-go task and the stop-signal task in which the stop-signal rule changed at the beginning of each block. The go and stop signals were superimposed over 40 task-irrelevant images. Our results show that participants can learn direct associations between images and the stop goal without mediation via the stop signal. Exposure to the image-stop associations influenced task performance during training, and expectancies measured following task completion or measured within the task. But, despite this, we found an effect of stimulus-stop learning on test performance only when the task increased the task-relevance of the images. This could indicate that the influence of stimulus-stop learning on go performance is strongly influenced by attention to both task-relevant and task-irrelevant stimulus features. More generally, our findings suggest a strong interplay between automatic and controlled processes.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the architecture of the associative stop system (for a more detailed overview, see Verbruggen, Best, et al., 2014). There are two associative routes to activating the stop-goal; a direct association between the stimulus or cue and the go/stop goal, or indirect association between the stimulus or cue and the go/stop goal that is mediated via a representation of the go/stop signal. Excitatory and inhibitory connections are represented on the diagram with arrows. See the online article for the color version of this figure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Example go/stop trial sequence. The task rule changed at the beginning of each block (e.g., Block n: vowel = stop, consonant = go; Block n + 1: > 5 = stop, < 5 = go). In Experiments 1 through 3, the go/stop signals were superimposed on top of the image (as shown). In Experiment 4, the signals were presented in one of the four corners of the image (top-left, bottom-left, top-right, bottom-right). See the online article for the color version of this figure.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Go reaction times (RTs; upper panel) and p(respond|stop) data (lower panel) for the three image types (stop, go, control) as a function of the block (Blocks 1–12 = training phase; Blocks 13–14 = test phase) in Experiment 1. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Go reaction times (RTs; upper panel) and p(respond|stop) data (lower panel) for the two image types (stop, go) as a function of the block (Blocks 1–12 = training phase; Blocks 13–14 = test phase) in Experiment 2. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Go reaction times (RTs; upper panel) and p(respond|stop) data (lower panel) for the three image types (stop, go, control) as a function of the block (Blocks 1–6 = training phase; Block 7 = test phase) in Experiment 3. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Go reaction times (RTs; upper panel), p(respond|stop) data (middle panel) and expectancy ratings (lower panel) for the three image types (stop, go, control) as a function of the block (Blocks 1–6 = training phase; Block 7 = test phase) in Experiment 4. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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