Dissociable effects of fear and disgust in proactive and reactive inhibition

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated that negative emotional distracters impair inhibitory control. Nevertheless, two issues have emerged in prior studies. First, fear and disgust were inappropriately treated as a single category, which is particularly concerning given that they have been recently demonstrated to exert different impacts on inhibitory control. Second, inhibitory control might not be a unitary construct, as it can be further divided into proactive and reactive inhibition. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether fearful and disgusting distracters have differential effects on proactive and reactive inhibition. Twenty-four female participants were instructed to perform a modified stop-signal task superimposed on a fearful, disgusting, or neutral image cue. Results showed that fearful distracters improved reactive inhibition when compared to disgusting and neutral distracters, while disgusting distracters enhanced proactive inhibition when compared to fearful distracters. Further, reactive and proactive inhibition was positively correlated under fearful, disgusting, and neutral contexts. This study is the first to provide evidence that fear and disgust may affect proactive and reactive inhibition differently. These results add to a growing literature linking emotion and inhibitory control, and they expand our understanding of the relationship between emotion and inhibition.