The cued go no-go task (Fillmore, 2003) measures impulse control by the ability to inhibit instigated, “prepotent” responses. The task manipulates response prepotency by presenting a preliminary go or no-go cue before the actual go or no-go target is displayed. The cues provide information concerning the probability that a go or no-go target will be presented. The cue-target relationship is manipulated so that the cues have a high probability of correctly signaling a go or no-go target (valid cues), and a low probability of incorrectly signaling a target (invalid cues) (see Figure 1). Valid cues tend to facilitate response inhibition and speed response execution, whereas invalid cue cues tend to impair response inhibition and slow response execution (Fillmore & Weafer, 2013). Figure 2 presents the sequence of stimulus events for a valid go cue trial: following a fixation, the go cue is presented at one of the five SOAs, signaling the subject to prepare to respond to the expected go target. The go target is then presented, the subject responds by pressing a computer key, and the computer provides feedback regarding accuracy and speed of the response (Fillmore & Weafer, 2013). In this condition, the valid go cue allows the subject to prepare to respond to the go target so that reaction time to the go target is hastened. Figure 3 illustrates the sequence of stimulus events for an invalid go cue trial: following a fixation, the go cue is presented so that the subject prepares to respond to the expected go target. When the no-go target appears the subject often fails to inhibit the response, and incorrectly responds to the no-go target. This is the critical trial condition that is used to assess the subject’s inhibitory control over a prepotent response. Poor inhibitory control is evident by more failures to inhibit responses in this condition. A test presents 250 trials and requires 15 minutes to complete.

Figure 1.
Cue-target combination probabilities on the cued go/no go task. Left panel: go cue precede go target (green box) on 80% of trials (valid go cue condition) and no-go targets (blue boxes) on 20% of trials (invalid go cue condition). Inhibitory failures are most common in the invalid go cue condition. Right panel: no- go cues precede a no-go target (blue boxes) on 80% of trials (valid no-go cue condition) and go targets (green boxes) on 20% of trials (invalid no-go cue condition)

Figure 2.
Schematic of the trial procedure in the valid go cue condition.

Figure 3.
Schematic of the trial procedure in the invalid go cue condition.
Cued Go No-Go instrument reference:
Drug abuse as a problem of impaired control: current approaches and findings.
Fillmore MT (2003)
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Validity
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