title: A formal cognitive model of the go/no-go discrimination task: evaluation and implications.
abstract: This article proposes and tests a formal cognitive model for the go/no-go discrimination task. In this task, the performer chooses whether to respond to stimuli and receives rewards for responding to certain stimuli and punishments for responding to others. Three cognitive models were evaluated on the basis of data from a longitudinal study involving 400 adolescents. The results show that a cue-dependent model presupposing that participants can differentiate between cues was the most accurate and parsimonious. This model has 3 parameters denoting the relative impact of rewards and punishments on evaluations, the rate that contingent payoffs are learned, and the consistency between learning and responding. Commission errors were associated with increased attention to rewards; omission errors were associated with increased attention to punishments. Both error types were associated with low choice consistency. The parameters were also shown to have external validity: Attention to rewards was associated with externalizing behavior problems on the Achenbach scale, and choice consistency was associated with low Welsh anxiety. The present model can thus potentially improve the sensitivity of the task to differences between clinical populations.
authors.affiliation: Behavioral Science Area, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion--Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. yeldad@tx.technion.ac.il
authors.forename: Eldad
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yechiam
authors.forename: Jackson
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goodnight
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.forename: Jerome R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Busemeyer
authors.forename: Kenneth A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dodge
authors.forename: Gregory S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Pettit
authors.forename: Joseph P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012201:Reward; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis