The Interaction Between Working Memory and Inhibition in Measures of Behavioural Regulation

Previous studies of executive functioning have tended to use separate tasks to measure working memory and inhibition, increasing the confounding effect of task-specific variance. Here we employ two novel tasks that orthogonally manipulate the working memory and inhibitory control demands within each paradigm. 96 adult participants will be recruited for an online study. Participants will be given 4 conditions of a choice reaction time task formed by the crossing of two levels of inhibition with two levels of working memory load. The task involves determining which spatial response location is associated with each stimulus. They will also receive 4 conditions of a selective response task formed by crossing two levels of inhibition with two levels of working memory load. The task involves making ‘go’ responses to half the stimuli while withholding a response to the other stimuli.