title: Response inhibition is more effortful than response activation: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.
abstract: The present study aimed to measure the response inhibition by embedding a secondary probe task within a Go/NoGo paradigm. The response time for the probe and the time course of the discrimination process for the probe shown by event-related potentials were measured to investigate the effect of response inhibition. The results showed that the probe response time were longer for the NoGo-probes versus Go-probes, indicating a more cognitively demanding process in processing NoGo stimuli. The event-related potential results showed that the NoGo stimuli evoked a more positive frontal P3 component relative to the Go stimuli. Compared with the NoGo-probes, the Go-probes evoked enhanced N1, but decreased P2 and P3 components over frontocentral scalps, indicating increased orienting process, but decreased selective attention process for the Go-probes. These results indicated that response inhibition (NoGo) was more cognitively demanding than the response activation (Go).
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Psychology, School of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian bKey Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Heming
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Mingming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult