The Go/NoGo task has been most widely used to assess response inhibition, in which an error of commission (defined as a false alarm response or a response made on a NoGo trial when it should have been withheld/suppressed) is considered to be an index reflecting a lack of adequate inhibition. The majority of studies have used a “reverse oddball” paradigm, where responses are “biased” towards the frequent “Go” trial in comparison to the rare “NoGo” (refrain response) trial, in order to establish “prepotency” of the “Go” response. Under these conditions, it is assumed that if an automatic “prepotent” (Go) response is suppressed (NoGo) successfully, this effortful suppression reflects successful response inhibition. Thus, measures associated with this effortful suppression may be regarded as correlates of response inhibition.
