ALSPAC – Age 24 – Inhibition (Stop-Signal Task)
The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) assessed their cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 24 sweep (Focus at 24) using a measure of Inhibition (Stop-Signal Task).
Details on this measure and the data collected from the CMs are outlined in the table below.
| Year of data collection: | 2015-2017 |
| Domain: | Reaction time |
| Measures: | Choice reaction time |
| Response inhibition | |
| CHC: | Gt (Decision Speed/Reaction Time) |
| CLOSER Source: | Explore this sweep in CLOSER Discovery: ALSPAC Early Adulthood (19 years – 30 years 11 months) (opens in a new tab) |
| Administration method: | Trained interviewer; clinical setting; computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) |
| Procedure: | This task was the first element of the Eprime cognitive tasks session. In the first part of the task the participant fixated on a plus sign (+) presented in the centre of the computer screen. An ‘X’ or ‘O’ was then presented on the screen and the correct key (the left or right arrow key) pressed as quickly as possible. These trials familiarised the participant with the task. The second part was identical to the first, but a bleep was heard (the stop signal) randomly after the X or O appeared (the go signal) on 25% of trials. If the bleep was not heard the participant was asked to press the corresponding key according to what was presented on screen. When the bleep was sounded the participant was to refrain from pressing the response button. |
| Link to questionnaire: | http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/our-data/clinical-measures/ (opens in a new tab) |
| Scoring: | Mean reaction times across different conditions. |
| Item-level variable(s): | FKEP3010 (Go accuracy) |
| FKEP3020 (Stop accuracy) | |
| FKEP3030 (median Go signal reaction time) | |
| FKEP3040 (median failed Stop signal reaction time) | |
| FKEP3050 (est. delay when prob. of correctly stopping is 50%) | |
| FKEP3060 (Stop signal reaction time) | |
| Total score/derived variable(s): | N/A (only item-level variables) |
| Descriptives: | N = 3,432 (for all item-level variables) |
| Age of participants (months): | Mean = 293.81 months, SD = 9.779, Range = 268.5 – 318.5 |
| Other sweep and/or cohort: | ALSPAC Age 10 |
| ALSPAC Age 15 | |
| Source: | Logan, G. D., Cowan, W. B., & Davis, K. A. (1984). On the ability to inhibit simple and choice reaction time responses: a model and a method. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10(2), 276. |
| Technical resources: | None |
| Example articles: | Pindus, D. M., Davis, R. D. M., Hillman, C. H., Bandelow, S., Hogervorst, E., Biddle, S. J., & Sherar, L. B. (2015). The relationship of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity to cognitive processing in adolescents: findings from the ALSPAC birth cohort. Psychological Research, 79(5), 715-728. |
| Wallace, S., & Linscott, R. J. (2018). Intra-individual variability and psychotic-like experiences in adolescents: Findings from the ALSPAC cohort. Schizophrenia Research, 195, 154-159. |
For the named items in the table above, links are provided to their corresponding content on CLOSER Discovery. Where a variable range is provided, full variable lists can be accessed through the ‘Variable Groups’ tab on the linked CLOSER Discovery page.