Premium
Abnormal performance monitoring but intact response inhibition in sensation seeking
Author(s) -
Zheng Ya,
Mei Shuting,
Yi Wei,
Li Qi,
Liu Xun
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.13373
Subject(s) - sensation seeking , sensation , psychology , response inhibition , trait , audiology , endophenotype , stop signal , addiction , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , neuroscience , medicine , personality , cognition , computer science , electrical engineering , programming language , engineering , latency (audio)
Abstract The sensation‐seeking trait is a potential endophenotype for various addictive behaviors. Using a nonclinical sample, the current ERP study examined the effects of sensation seeking on performance monitoring and response inhibition. Twenty high sensation seekers and 21 low sensation seekers were selected from a large sample based on their sensation‐seeking score and performed a stop‐signal task while their EEG was recorded. High relative to low sensation seekers displayed similar response inhibition in terms of performance measure and stop‐P3 amplitudes. Compared to low sensation seekers, however, high sensation seekers exhibited a reduced stop‐N2 for unsuccessful, but not successful, inhibition. Moreover, an enhanced go‐N2 in response to go signals was observed for high versus low sensation seekers, irrespective of whether the go signals were followed by a stop signal or not. Together, our findings suggest that sensation seeking in nonclinical populations is related to individual variability in performance monitoring rather than response inhibition, which provides important implications for the prevention and intervention of addictive behaviors that are driven by trait sensation seeking.