Prepotent motor activity and inhibitory control demands in different variants of the go/no-go paradigm

Inhibitory control enables humans to stop prepotent motor activity, and is commonly studied using go/no-go or stop-signal tasks. In stop-signal tasks, prepotent motor activity is elicited by delaying stop signals relative to go signals. In go/no-go tasks, however, trials include only one signal-go or no-go. Hence, prepotent motor activity has to be ensured differently-for example, by using rare no-go trials and short trial durations. However, a literature survey shows that ∼40% of studies use equiprobable go/no-go trials and ∼20% use long stimulus-stimulus intervals (> 4 s). It is unclear whether such slow-paced, equiprobable go/no-go tasks elicit prepotent motor activity and probe inhibitory control. We recorded EEG during four go/no-go tasks, varying in no-go probability and trial duration. We quantified prepotent motor activity on successfully inhibited no-go trials using the lateralized readiness potential. Only fast-paced go/no-go tasks with rare no-go trials reliably evoked such activity. We then used a stop-signal task and independent component analysis to isolate an established neural signature of inhibitory control, and investigated this signature's activity across the go/no-go tasks. Across tasks, increased prepotent motor activity on individual no-go trials was accompanied by greater frontocentral P3 amplitudes, confirming it as an index of inhibition. Crucially, this inhibition-related activity showed a 75% reduction in slow-paced, equiprobable go/no-go tasks compared to fast-paced, rare no-go versions. Therefore, since many common go/no-go task configurations do not reliably evoke prepotent motor activity, their inhibitory requirements are greatly reduced. This has major implications for the usage of go/no-go tasks in psychological experiments.