Glossary
Inhibitory control
What is inhibitory control?
Inhibitory control is the executive function that enables a person to suppress prepotent (strongly prepared or habitual) responses, resist distractions, and stop ongoing actions when they are no longer appropriate. It is one part of self-regulation and impulse control.
How it works
Researchers study inhibitory control with tasks such as withholding a response in a Go/No-Go task or naming ink colors in a Stroop task. For example, if the word RED appears in blue ink, the Stroop instruction is to say “blue,” not to read “red.” The printed word supplies a competing response that the participant must resist to follow the color-naming rule. These tasks place different demands on attention and action. Performance changes with development and context; they are not interchangeable measures of a single neural brake.
Applied example
Stopping a prepared button press when a stop signal appears is a laboratory example of response inhibition. How well someone performs this task does not, by itself, establish how they will drive or make decisions in daily life.
Why it matters
Inhibitory control helps describe the regulation of attention and action. It should not be assumed to be a fixed resource that is depleted whenever it is used.
Aron (2007) examines when inhibition is an appropriate explanation of cognitive control.