Mapping self-reported to behavioral impulsiveness: the role of task parameters.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Behavioral and self-report measures of impulsiveness often show poor correlation, despite being considered indicators of a shared psychological capacity.
• Impulsiveness is a multidimensional construct, necessitating a nuanced approach to its measurement and analysis.
• Understanding the relationship between different facets of self-control is crucial for accurate psychological assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between behavioral self-control components (delay discounting, response inhibition) and lower-order facets of self-reported impulsiveness.
• To examine how task parameters, specifically the interplay of facilitative and interfering priming, influence the association between response inhibition and self-reported impulsiveness.
• To explore the convergent validity of self-control measures by considering the multidimensional nature of impulsiveness and subtle task variations.

Main Methods:

• Two studies involving 185 participants who completed laboratory self-control tasks and self-report impulsiveness questionnaires.
• Utilized correlational analyses to assess associations between specific behavioral measures and self-reported impulsiveness facets.
• Employed a go/no-go paradigm with varying distractor-target stimulus onset asynchrony to probe response inhibition.

Main Results:

• A significant association was found between Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) subscales and response inhibition when distractors were presented simultaneously with target stimuli.
• This correlation between BIS subscales and response inhibition disappeared when an onset asynchrony was introduced between distractor and target stimuli.
• Replication of previous findings linking BIS subscales to delay discounting or intra-individual response variability was not achieved.

Conclusions:

• The relationship between response inhibition and self-reported impulsiveness is highly sensitive to subtle variations in laboratory task parameters.
• Procedural details, such as stimulus timing and the balance of priming effects, critically influence the observed correlations.
• A more differentiated analysis of self-control measure validity requires careful consideration of task specifics and the multidimensionality of impulsiveness.