Fig. 1.

Stop-Signal Task Paradigm. (a). Go trials begin with a fixation screen followed by the presentation of the face for 1 s while the participants indicate the gender of the face by pressing one of two buttons on an electronic response box. (b). On stop trials, a stop signal was displayed for 100 ms after a 200–500 ms delay. The stop-signal delay was adjusted based on participant performance so that better withholding of responses on the previous two trials resulted in an increased delay between the presentation of the face and the stop signal, thereby making the task more difficult. On go trials, the ERP epoch was time-locked to face onset (Face ERP), while for stop trials, the ERP epoch was time-locked to the stop-signal onset (Stop ERP).