A NOVEL GO/NO-GO GRIP FORCE TASK IN THE EXAMINATION OF INHIBITORY CONTROL IN ADULTS WITH AND WITHOUT ADHD

Open Access
- Author:
- Wang, Peiyuan
- Graduate Program:
- Kinesiology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- May 22, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Kristina A. Neely, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Cynthia Huang-Pollock, Committee Member
John H. Challis, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Inhibitory control
ADHD
Go/No-Go task
motor control - Abstract:
- Inhibitory control is the ability to suppress thoughts or actions that are inappropriate in a given context. Button-press Go/No-Go (GNG) reaction time tasks are traditionally used to measure inhibitory control. Such GNG tasks report commission error (CE) rates based on the presence or absence of a single key press, and therefore may not provide a thorough understanding of motor inhibition. The goal of this study was to employ a continuous grip-force based GNG task to capture subtle but important behavioral differences in motor inhibition. To that end, we employed a traditional button-press GNG task and a grip force variant of the task with identical parameters to examine inhibitory control in adults aged 18 – 25 (N = 171, 84 female) with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is characterized by poor inhibitory control and can introduce heterogeneity in motor inhibition into the sample. The current study hypothesized that the force GNG task would provide more information regarding inhibitory control than the button-press task. Results suggest that adults with ADHD generated greater peak force and increased trial-by-trial variability of force in No-Go trials of the force task than adults without ADHD. Continuous force outputs were dichotomized to create CE rates. Regardless of group, the force task detected more CEs compared to the button-press task (ps < .001). These findings suggest that the force GNG task is a reliable task in quantifying inhibitory control, and the force task excels the button-press task at capturing subtle behavioral characteristics during motor inhibition.