Abstract
Abstract
Introduction
Withholding uninitiated actions and cancelling ongoing ones are two main components of response inhibition, a key element of the executive control. Inhibitory performance is sensitive to emotional contexts elicited by subliminal and supraliminal visual material. However, whether stimuli from other sensory modalities, such as odours, would equally modulate response inhibition remains unclear. Here, we aimed to assess the effect of task-irrelevant odours as a function of their valence and threshold on both action withholding and action cancellation of reach-to-press movements.
Method
Thirty-two healthy participants performed a Go/No-Go task that included the presentation of pleasant (orange) and unpleasant (trimethyloxazole) odour primes at supra- and sub-threshold levels; clean air was included as a control condition. The reach-to-press responses were composed of an initial release phase and a subsequent reaching phase.
Results
Only the supra-threshold pleasant (vs. control) odour impaired action withholding. Moreover, the pleasant (vs. control) odour—presented at both sub- and supra-threshold levels—elicited more accurate Go responses, whereas the sub- and supra-threshold pleasant and unpleasant (vs. control) odours triggered faster responses in the release phase. Additionally, only the supra-threshold pleasant (vs. unpleasant) odour impaired action cancellation in the reaching phase. Furthermore, reaching responses were slower following the supra-threshold unpleasant (vs. control) odour.
Conclusions
Our findings extend the sparse literature on the impact of odour stimuli on goal-directed behaviour, highlighting the role of both odour valence and threshold in the modulation of response inhibition.
Implications
Determining the mechanisms by which odour stimuli modulate response inhibition lays the foundations for research on odour-triggered disinhibition.
Funder
National Research and Development Agency
Dipartimenti di Eccellenza, Ministry of Education, University and Research
Università degli Studi di Padova
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience,Sensory Systems
Cited by
3 articles.
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