The influence of practice on response inhibition and its inhibitory after-effects in visual, location-based tasks

Abstract

To-be-ignored distractor events are nonetheless deeply processed, to the point of activating their associated response which subsequently undergo inhibition. These inhibited responses resist future execution, thereby delaying later target processing that requires their production (i.e., time is needed to 'override' this resistance). The question here is whether this detrimental inhibitory after-effect can be reduced/removed with practice – i.e., can override time be reduced? Method: 30 individuals undertook a classis spatial negative priming (SNP) task (SNP effect is solely caused by earlier response inhibition after-effects and so indexes the latter), completing 16 sessions of 224 prime-probe trial pairs, including a total of 448 ignored-repetition trials, which require override. Results: An ANOVA with Probe Trial Type (t+d, t-only), Sessions (3-14) and SNP (ignored-repetition, Control) as factors, showed a significant SNP effect, F(1, 29)= 179.79, p< 0.01), which did not interact with the other factors. Distractor interference (RT[t+d] – RT[t-only]) declined significantly over sessions. Conclusions: (1) override time is not shortened due to practice, so the negative impact on target processing caused by recently inhibited responses cannot be set aside on this account, and, (2) while distractor potency declines over practice (i.e., produces less interference), this is not associated with faster override times.

Acknowledgments: NSERC