Unpacking response Inhibition in animals – part 2: an empirical test

Response inhibition - the ability to suppress or stop actions - is crucial for adaptive behaviour across species. In Part 1 of this study, we presented a conceptual framework for understanding response inhibition as multifaceted. Specifically, we conceptualised response inhibition as a race between a 'go runner' and a 'stop runner'. These runners are modulated by the type of stimulus that triggers the runner, the relative timing between stimuli, and the type of actions that are elicited. In Part 2, the framework is used to make predictions about correlations between different measures of response inhibition across three tasks: the detour barrier task, the thwarting task, and the stop-change task. These predictions were tested in two closely related bird species: herring gulls (Larus argentatus) and lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus). The correlations between specific measures of response inhibition were generally weak. This pattern of results supports the idea that response inhibition is not a unitary ability, but rather a set of partly independent components. These findings highlight the importance of task context and trigger type in shaping inhibitory performance, and they illustrate how conceptual and mathematical models can guide more nuanced interpretations of inhibition across different ecological and experimental settings.