Assessing Inhibitory Control Strategies and Reward Motivation with the Diffusion Model
Open Access
Author:
Roule, Alexandra
Graduate Program:
Psychology
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
June 22, 2020
Committee Members:
Cynthia L Huang-Pollock, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Frank Gerard Hillary, Committee Member Richard Alan Carlson, Committee Member Kristin Ann Buss, Program Head/Chair
Keywords:
ADHD cognitive control proactive control reactive control
Abstract:
Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often display inhibitory control deficits on tasks like the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT) task. Given that inhibition is dependent upon cognitive control, as well as motivation to successfully inhibit, the following study assessed proactive and reactive strategies under different reward contexts in children with and without ADHD. During the SSRT task, being rewarded for correctly inhibiting responses is often associated with slower reaction time to Go trials, but the mechanism of that slowing is not clear. Using the diffusion model (DM), this study identified similar mechanisms for proactive and reactive cognitive control strategies for children in the ADHD and non-ADHD control group. In particular, proactive control shifts between reward conditions corresponded with changes in boundary separation, indicating that higher reward correlated with a more conservative response approach.
