Electrophysiological correlates for response inhibition in intellectually gifted children: a Go/NoGo study

Superior response inhibition is an essential component of the advanced cognitive abilities of gifted children. This study investigated response inhibition in intellectually gifted children by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during a Go/NoGo task. Fifteen intellectually gifted children and 15 intellectually average children participated. Our present findings showed that intellectually gifted children had shorter Go-P3 latency, indicating faster processing of Go stimuli, a finding consistent with previous studies. We focused on the two inhibition-related components, NoGo-N2 and NoGo-P3. The results showed that NoGo-P3 latency was shorter for intellectually gifted children compared to their average peers. N2 latency did not indicate the intelligence difference. These results suggested that intellectually gifted children showed faster inhibition when dealing with NoGo stimuli, and this superiority came from the later stages of inhibition, i.e., response evaluation or the success of inhibiting a response, as indexed by the shorter P3 latency.