Oculomotor response inhibition and distractor suppression following prior self-control exertion in athletes

Prior self-control exertion can affect subsequent attention and performance, but the specific visual control processes involved in athletes remain unclear. The present study examined oculomotor response inhibition and distractor suppression during visual search following prior self-control exertion in athletes.

In Experiment 1 (N = 75), prior self-control exertion was manipulated using a proportion-congruent Stroop task, and oculomotor response inhibition was assessed using prosaccade and antisaccade tasks. In Experiment 2 (N = 62), participants completed visual search under no-activation and activation conditions after either the depletion or the no-depletion Stroop condition.

In Experiment 1, the high-depletion group showed longer antisaccade latencies and greater inhibitory control costs, while prosaccade latencies and saccade error rates did not differ significantly across groups. In Experiment 2, within the depletion group, the activation condition produced longer reaction times, delayed first fixation on the target, more fixations, and longer cumulative fixation duration on distractors than the no-activation condition.

Together, the findings indicate that prior self-control exertion was associated with latency-based costs in oculomotor response inhibition and greater difficulty suppressing salient distractors during visual search in this athlete sample.