title: Cognitive control in closed head injury: context maintenance dysfunction or prepotent response inhibition deficit?
abstract: The authors contrasted 2 potential explanations for the cognitive control deficits observed in closed head injury (CHI): a prepotent response inhibition deficit or a deficit in context maintenance, defined as the guidance of appropriate responding by task-relevant information. Healthy and CHI participants performed the traditional card Stroop task and a single-trial Stroop task sensitive to context maintenance deficits. As predicted by a context maintenance deficit, moderate to severe CHI participants showed higher error rates in the single-trial Stroop task only, and only when task instructions had to be maintained over a long delay. Moreover, context maintenance impairment and generalized slowing were both related to reports of daily functioning in CHI participants. Thus, context maintenance could be a useful framework for characterizing cognitive control deficits in CHI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA.
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Seignourel
authors.forename: Diana L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Robins
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Jason A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Demery
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.forename: William M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Perlstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D016489:Head Injuries, Closed / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*