Reaction Time of Erroneous Responses in the Go/No-Go Paradigm Effects of Go Trial Probability and Memory Demand

Reaction time (RT) of erroneous responses in go/no-go tasks tends to be shorter than RT of correct responses. An opposite difference has been reported (Halperin, Wolf, Greenblatt, & Young, 1991) which could be attributed to differences in go trial probability, or to high memory demand. Two experiments aimed here to test these two explanations, a simultaneous matching task with low memory load (Experiment 1), and a sequential matching task with high memory load (Experiment 2). Go trial probability was also manipulated. Short false positive PT was obtained only in the sequential matching task with high go trial probability, while long false positive PT was obtained in the other three conditions. Low go trial probability and high memory load were both found to be sufficient, by themselves, to create long false positives attributable to confusion. Short false positives in the high go trial probability/low memory load condition were attributed to failure of response inhibition.