Top-down and bottom-up influences on action and inhibition

A series of studies with complex Go/No-Go tasks systematically examined the influence of tasks that require different combinations of Go and No-Go responses. Specifically, this thesis investigated how commission and omission errors are influenced by the actual distribution of the responses required during the trials (bottom-up factor) and a response mapping rule provided in the beginning (top-down factor). Results indicated that the Go-trial proportion and the Go-mapping rule moderate action (Go responses) and action inhibition (No-Go response) in different ways. Experiment 1 found that a high-Go-trial proportion that coincided with a high-Go-mapping rule produced significantly higher commission-error rates, lower omission-error rates, and shorter hit RTs than a low Go-trial proportion that coincided with a low Go-mapping rule. Experiments 2 and 3 differentiated the effect of the Go-trial proportion from the effect of the Go-mapping rule. These two experiments revealed that a higher Go-trial proportion increased commission-error rates but decreased omission-error rates, whereas a higher Go-mapping rule increased both commission-error rates and omission-error rates. Implications for designing effective behavioral programs are discussed