Planning on Autopilot? Associative Contributions to Proactive Control.

Proactive cognitive control is thought to rely on the active maintenance of goals or contextual information in working memory. It is often measured using the AX-CPT, in which antecedent cues (A/B) are used to proactively prepare a response to a subsequently-presented probe (X/Y). Although control in this task purportedly requires active maintenance of information in working memory, it also provides conditions in which learning the contingencies between relevant events could influence performance via associative learning.

TMS reveals distinct patterns of proactive and reactive inhibition in motor system activity.

Response inhibition is our ability to suppress or cancel actions when required. Deficits in response inhibition are linked with a range of psychopathological disorders including addiction and OCD. Studies on response inhibition have largely focused on reactive inhibition-stopping an action when explicitly cued.