Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of delayed response on inhibitory control in low- and high-impulsivity adolescents in the presence of an emotional context. Participants performed a Go/No-Go task in 4 conditions: a control context with and without delayed response, and a pleasant context with and without delayed response. The amplitudes and latencies of the N2 and P3 components were evaluated. The delay increased the number of correct inhibitions and omissions but decreased the number of correct responses and N2 and P3 amplitudes during inhibition. The high-impulsivity adolescents showed larger amplitudes in P3NoGo but shorter N2 latencies during the NoGo trials, and the opposite during the Go trials, as they required more processing time than the low-impulsivity adolescents to restart their motor responses. In conclusion, the delayed response did improve inhibitory control and, the beneficial effects of the delay were less pronounced in the high-impulsivity adolescents when the distraction of the pleasant stimuli was present.
Highlights
Adolescence is a transitional developmental stage from childhood-to-adulthood marked by major changes that include sexual maturation, cognitive improvement, emotional instability and greater social involvement with peers
These effects could be explained using Logan and Cowan’s horse race model (1984) that has been tested in the stop-signal reaction task paradigm (SSRT), which proposes that response and inhibition are independent processes, and that a signal can initiate a stopping process that races against the motor response process
The contribution of this study consists in providing evidence that a delayed response benefits inhibitory control in adolescents regardless of their impulsivity level
Summary
Adolescence is a transitional developmental stage from childhood-to-adulthood marked by major changes that include sexual maturation, cognitive improvement, emotional instability and greater social involvement with peers. It is characterized by increased impulsivity and risk-taking behavior, more pronounced responses to rewarding and emotional stimuli, higher novel sensation-seeking, and poor judgment in goal-directed behaviors, though these traits are by no means expressed homogeneously in all teenagers (Casey, Jones, & Hare, 2008; Chambers & Potenza, 2003; Romer, 2010). Other authors (Tottenham, Hare, & Casey, 2011) have found that while response times to negative emotional stimuli ijps.ccsenet.org
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