Visual salience of the stop-signal affects movement suppression process.

Abstract

We investigated how the ability to suppress an impending movement is affected by the visual salience of the stop-signal in a reaching countermanding task. We found that when the stop-signal was easy to detect, stop performance was better than when the stop-signal was difficult to detect. In an exploratory analysis, we also found that the change in salience of the stop-signal can have an effect on the speed of response in trials following the stop-signal. This effect occurred together with strategic slowing down after an error in inhibiting was committed and together with a repetition priming effect due to the stop-signal presented in the previous trial. Our results suggest the need to investigate more in depth the afferent processing stage of the inhibitory control of movement and how task demands can affect its functioning.