{"title":"Is the antisaccade task a valid measure of inhibition?","authors":"Gidon T Frischkorn, Klaus Oberauer","doi":"10.1037/xge0001808","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research on individual differences in executive functions has often used a manual version of the antisaccade task to measure cognitive inhibition. Here, we investigated the validity of antisaccade performance as a measure of inhibition. Success in this task relies on several processes: inhibition of a saccade to the cue location, translating the cue location into the target location, making a saccade to the target location, and rapid identification of the target stimulus. In two experiments (<i>N</i><sub>E1</sub> = 181 and <i>N</i><sub>E2</sub> = 165), we varied whether the task required these processes. We also varied the preparation time before each trial and the cue-target interval to measure the speed of task-relevant processes. We used a theoretically motivated statistical model to dissociate parameters that reflect the contribution of each process to performance. Individual differences in most of these parameters correlated with observed performance, implying that performance reflects a mixture of several processes. Critically, inhibition accounted for a small proportion of variance in performance. Only the efficiency of translating cue information into the target location was credibly correlated with working memory capacity and processing speed. These results question the validity of antisaccade performance as a measure of inhibition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":15698,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001808","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Research on individual differences in executive functions has often used a manual version of the antisaccade task to measure cognitive inhibition. Here, we investigated the validity of antisaccade performance as a measure of inhibition. Success in this task relies on several processes: inhibition of a saccade to the cue location, translating the cue location into the target location, making a saccade to the target location, and rapid identification of the target stimulus. In two experiments (NE1 = 181 and NE2 = 165), we varied whether the task required these processes. We also varied the preparation time before each trial and the cue-target interval to measure the speed of task-relevant processes. We used a theoretically motivated statistical model to dissociate parameters that reflect the contribution of each process to performance. Individual differences in most of these parameters correlated with observed performance, implying that performance reflects a mixture of several processes. Critically, inhibition accounted for a small proportion of variance in performance. Only the efficiency of translating cue information into the target location was credibly correlated with working memory capacity and processing speed. These results question the validity of antisaccade performance as a measure of inhibition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Experimental Psychology: General publishes articles describing empirical work that bridges the traditional interests of two or more communities of psychology. The work may touch on issues dealt with in JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, JEP: Human Perception and Performance, JEP: Animal Behavior Processes, or JEP: Applied, but may also concern issues in other subdisciplines of psychology, including social processes, developmental processes, psychopathology, neuroscience, or computational modeling. Articles in JEP: General may be longer than the usual journal publication if necessary, but shorter articles that bridge subdisciplines will also be considered.