Does the emotional go/no-go task really measure behavioral inhibition? Convergence with measures on a non-emotional analog.

This study tested the convergence of behavioral inhibition measures across emotional and non-emotional versions of the same go/no-go task in 85 college students. The two tasks differed only in the stimuli used for trial cues (i.e., circles versus facial expressions). Moderate correlations (r=.51-.56) between commission errors across the emotional and non-emotional tasks support the construct validity of behavioral inhibition. Further, parametric manipulation of preceding context had comparable effects on performance on the two tasks. Responses were slower and more variable, commission errors were more numerous, and perceptual sensitivity was lower on the emotional than the non-emotional task. A bias for happy faces on the emotional task resulted in faster responses and more commission errors for happy than sad faces despite marginally greater sensitivity for the latter. These results suggest that the basic neuropsychological constructs of the original go/no-go task were preserved in the emotional adaptation.