Slower adaptation of control strategies in individuals with high impulsive tendencies

Flexible use of reactive and proactive control according to environmental demands is the key to adaptive behavior. In this study, forty-eight adults performed ten blocks of an AX-CPT task to reveal the strength of proactive control by the calculation of the proactive behavioral index (PBI). They also filled out the UPPS questionnaire to assess their impulsiveness. The median-split method based on the global UPPS score distribution was used to categorize participants as having high (HI) or low (LI) impulsiveness traits. The analyses revealed that the PBI was negatively correlated with the UPPS scores, suggesting that the higher is the impulsiveness, the weaker the dominance of proactive control processes. We showed, at an individual level, that the PBI increased across blocks and suggested that this effect was due to a smaller decrease in reactive control processes. Notably, the PBI increase was slower in the HI group than in the LI group. Moreover, participants who did not adapt to task demands were all characterized as high impulsive. Overall, the current study demonstrates that (1) impulsiveness is associated with less dominant proactive control due to (2) slower adaptation to task demands (3) driven by a stronger reliance on reactive processes. These findings are discussed in regards to pathological populations.