Multimodal Imaging and Cognitive Control Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience Cluster, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Research Center for Developmental Processes and Gradients in Mental Health, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychiatric Research, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Cortex. 2024 Jun;175:81-105. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.02.008. Epub 2024 Feb 27.
Response inhibition, the intentional stopping of planned or initiated actions, is often considered a key facet of control, impulsivity, and self-regulation. The stop signal task is argued to be the purest inhibition task we have, and it is thus central to much work investigating the role of inhibition in areas like development and psychopathology. Most of this work quantifies stopping behavior by calculating the stop signal reaction time as a measure of individual stopping latency. Individual difference studies aiming to investigate why and how stopping latencies differ between people often do this under the assumption that the stop signal reaction time indexes a stable, dispositional trait. However, empirical support for this assumption is lacking, as common measures of inhibition and control tend to show low test-retest reliability and thus appear unstable over time. The reasons for this could be methodological, where low stability is driven by measurement noise, or substantive, where low stability is driven by a larger influence of state-like and situational factors. To investigate this, we characterized the split-half and test-retest reliability of a range of common behavioral and electrophysiological measures derived from the stop signal task. Across three independent studies, different measurement modalities, and a systematic review of the literature, we found a pattern of low temporal stability for inhibition measures and higher stability for measures of manifest behavior and non-inhibitory processing. This pattern could not be explained by measurement noise and low internal consistency. Consequently, response inhibition appears to have mostly state-like and situational determinants, and there is little support for the validity of conceptualizing common inhibition measures as reflecting stable traits.
反应抑制，即有意图地停止计划或发起的行动，通常被认为是控制、冲动和自我调节的关键方面。停止信号任务被认为是我们拥有的最纯粹的抑制任务，因此它是调查抑制在发展和精神病理学等领域作用的许多工作的核心。这项工作的大部分通过计算停止信号反应时间来量化停止行为，作为个体停止潜伏期的衡量标准。旨在调查为什么和如何在人与人之间的停止潜伏期存在差异的个体差异研究通常在假设停止信号反应时间指数一个稳定的、特质性的特征的前提下进行。然而，缺乏对这一假设的实证支持，因为常见的抑制和控制措施往往表现出较低的测试-重测可靠性，因此随着时间的推移显得不稳定。造成这种情况的原因可能是方法学上的，低稳定性是由测量噪声驱动的，或者是实质性的，低稳定性是由状态和情境因素的更大影响驱动的。为了调查这一点，我们对一系列源自停止信号任务的常见行为和电生理测量指标的半分测试和重测可靠性进行了描述。在三个独立的研究中，使用不同的测量模式和对文献的系统回顾，我们发现抑制措施的时间稳定性较低，而表现行为和非抑制性加工的测量指标的稳定性较高。这种模式不能用测量噪声和低内部一致性来解释。因此，反应抑制似乎主要有状态和情境决定因素，并且很少有证据支持将常见抑制措施概念化为反映稳定特征的有效性。
