Second, the disaggregation of trait measures of impulsivity into five separate constructs is quite recent. Attempts to relate the five trait constructs to laboratory task performance are just now underway (Gay et al. 2008). There will probably be important new developments relating the traits and tasks in the coming years. One initial attempt to relate the cognitive tasks to personality traits is that of Bechara & Van der Linden (2005). They suggested that urgency may relate to prepotent response inhibition (or, in Dougherty's terms, difficulty inhibiting already initiated responses), whereas lack of perseverance may relate to resistance to proactive interference. Consistent with their view, McCarthy, Kroll & Smith (2001) found that errors in a go/no-go task correlated with neurotic extraversion; go/no-go errors of commission are thought to reflect failures to inhibit prepotent responses. Most recently, Gay et al. (2008) provided more direct empirical support for their contention. Gay et al. (2008) found that negative urgency did in fact correlate with errors in a go/no-go task, and that lack of perseverance did relate to difficulties in overcoming proactive interference and to intrusion of task unrelated thoughts.
