Emotional Go/No-Go Task

Background

Go/Nogo Tasks are used as cognitive-behavioral measures of cognitive control, specifically the ability to withhold a prepotent behavioral response. The 'Go' part of a Go/Nogo experimental design refers to trials that run stimuli that require a response, the 'Nogo' trials on the other hand present stimuli that require participants to withhold this response. By increasing the ratio of 'Go' to 'Nogo' trials, the go-response becomes the prepotent and automatic response pattern. The simplicity of the Go/Nogo testing paradigm makes it suitable to be used with participants of a wide range of ages. Furthermore, it has been shown that younger participants are more susceptible to making commission errors supporting that cognitive control increases with age.

Nim Tottenham and colleagues leveraged this paradigm in 2011 to study the developmental trajectory of people's ability to maintain cognitive control in the context of potentially interfering emotional information (e.g. angry faces) as a fundamental aspect of our ability to regulate our own emotions. Knowing this developmental trajectory is particularly important for identifying those age periods in which children are particularly vulnerable to disruptions of age-appropriate emotion regulation processes.

In their study Tottenham et al tested participants between the ages of 5 to 28 years with a Go/Nogo task using images of people showing different facial expressions (happy, sad, fearful, angry) and pinning them against images of neutral facial expressions. Their results, supporting that cognitive control in the face of emotional information increased with age, provided important normative behavioral data for different ages for subsequent research on emotion regulation.

The Millisecond implementation of the Emotional Go/Nogo Task provides the general framework to run the task but uses placeholder stimuli due to copyright concerns.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond implementation of the Emotional Go/Nogo procedure provides the option for a short practice session to familiarize participants with the Go/Nogo procedure. During this optional practice, participants are asked to press the spacebar for SURPRISED faces but not for any others (which are all neutral faces). Go and Nogo trials are balanced throughout the practice session and each facial expression (surprised vs. neutral) is presented 5 times for a total of 10 trials. Error Feedback is provided during practice.

The test phase consists of 8 blocks of 30 trials each that contrast the four facial emotions 'happy', 'sad', 'fearful' and 'angry' with neutral expressions. Each facial expression is used once as the Go-stimulus that requires a spacebar-press and once as the Nogo stimulus that requires the participant to withhold the spacebar-press. For example, in block 'AN', participants are asked to press the spacebar anytime they see an ANGRY face but do nothing for any other face (which are all neutral ones). In block 'NA' on the other hand, participants are are asked to press the spacebar anytime they see a NEUTRAL face but do nothing for any other face (which are all angry ones). The ratio of Go:Nogo Trials in each of the eight blocks is 2:1.

During each trial the image is displayed for 500ms, followed by a fixation stimulus in the center of the screen for 1000ms. Participants have the entire 1500ms to respond.

What it Measures

The Emotional Go/Nogo task measures cognitive control in the context of emotional information

Psychological domains

• Executive Control: Ability to resolve conflict amongst competing stimuli, involving response inhibition and decision-making
• Inhibitory Control / Response Inhibition: Ability to override automatic/dominant responses that interfere with one's goals
• Selective Attention: Focusing on a specific stimulus or task while filtering out distractions
• Emotion Regulation: Ability to monitor, evaluate, and modify one's emotional reactions

Main Performance Metrics

• Commission Errors (False Alarms): Responding when you should have withheld. This is the primary measure of inhibitory control.
• Omission Errors: Failing to respond to a 'Go' stimulus, which measures attention.
• Reaction Time (RT): The speed of responses on 'Go' trials, often used to identify emotional bias
• d-prime: Main measure of emotion discrimination between Go and Nogo stimuli

Psychiatric Conditions

Emotional Go/Nogo paradigms have been successfully used to study the following patient groups (amongst others):

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
• Bipolar Disorder/Mania
• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Substance Use Disorders (SUD)

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Emotional Go/No-Go Task.

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Tottenham, N., Hare, T.A. & and B. J. Casey, B.J. (2011). Behavioral assessment of emotion discrimination, emotion regulation, and cognitive control in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Frontiers in Psychology

Gole, Köchel, Schäfer, & Schienle. (2011). Threat engagement, disengagement, and sensitivity bias in worry-prone individuals as measured by an emotional go/no-go task. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 43(1), 532-539.

Yerys, B., Kenworthy, L., Jankowski, K., Strang, J., Wallace, G., Rao, Stephen M., & Brown, Gregory G. (2013). Separate Components of Emotional Go/No-Go Performance Relate to Autism Versus Attention Symptoms in Children With Autism. Neuropsychology, 27(5), 537-545.

Trinkl, M., Greimel, E., Bartling, J., Grünewald, B., Schulte‐Körne, G., & Grossheinrich, N. (2015). Right‐lateralization of N2‐amplitudes in depressive adolescents: An emotional go/no‐go study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(1), 76-86.

Hildebrandt, T., Grotzinger, A., & Schulz, K. (2016). Anorexia nervosa, emotional go/no‐go, and the distinct effect of testosterone. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 49(1), 69-76.

Ho, Hall, Noseworthy, & Dematteo. (2017). An Emotional Go/No-Go fMRI study in adolescents with depressive symptoms following concussion. International Journal of Psychophysiology, <xocs:firstpage xmlns:xocs=""/>.

Sinke, Wollmer, Kneer, Kahl, & Kruger. (2017). Interaction between behavioral inhibition and emotional processing in borderline personality disorder using a pictorial emotional go/no-go paradigm. Psychiatry Research, 256, 286-289.

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