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Towards a two-stage model of action-stopping: Attentional capture explains motor inhibition during early stop-signal processing

Joshua R. Tatz,Cheol Soh,J. Wessel

Published 2021 in bioRxiv

ABSTRACT

The ability to stop an already initiated action is paramount to adaptive behavior. Most scientific debate in the field of human action-stopping currently focuses on two interrelated questions. First: Which mental and neural processes underpin the implementation of inhibitory control, and which reflect the attentional detection of salient stop-signals instead? Second: Why do physiological signatures of inhibition occur at two different latencies after stop-signals (for visual signals, either before or after ∼150ms)? Here, we address both questions via two pre-registered experiments that combined transcranial magnetic stimulation, electromyography, and multi-variate pattern analysis of whole-scalp electroencephalography. Using a stop-signal task that also contained a second type of salient signal that did not require stopping, we found that both signals induced equal amounts of early-latency inhibitory activity, whereas only later signatures (after 175ms) distinguished the two. These findings resolve ongoing debates in the literature and strongly suggest a two-step model of action-stopping.

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