ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2021
The Pause-then-Cancel model of human action-stopping: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence.
Review in Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Evidence for non-selective response inhibition in uncertain contexts revealed by combined meta-analysis and Bayesian analysis of fMRI data.Scientific reports · 2022Pooled it
- Cortical sensorimotor activity in the execution and suppression of discrete and rhythmic movements.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Has stopping stopped making sense? Disentangling the processes elicited by complex action cancellation paradigms.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Cortical Contributions to Attentional Orienting and Response Cancellation in Action Stopping.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Distinct temporal patterns of beta bursts differentiate successful and failed movement cancellation.iScience · 2026Article
- A cortico-subthalamic circuit rapidly engages and releases inhibition of specific movements depending on the environmental context.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Rapid Motor Inhibition as a Mechanism to Prevent Outdated Movements.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- How the dynamic interplay of cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic pathways shapes the time course of deliberation and commitment.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- The Difficulty in Numerical Computation Impacts Motor Decisions in a Stop-Signal Task.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Cortico-basal ganglia dynamics of global and selective response inhibition in humans.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Unpacking response inhibition in animals - part 1: a conceptual framework.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Inhibitory control of response execution when a frequently cued response set is rarely replaced with an alternative one.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Neural signatures and personalized neuromodulation in a subject experiencing context-dependent inhibitory control deficits.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- The time-course of action control: measuring conditioned action tendencies and action suppression using transcranial magnetic stimulation.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Stopping Muscle Contractions and Relaxations during Action Inhibition Involves Global and Targeted Control Dependent on Muscle State.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Electrophysiological Signatures of Planned and Unplanned Continuous Movement Termination in Parkinson's Disease.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Global Motor System Suppression as the Primary Mechanism of Human Action Stopping: Challenging the Pause-Then-Cancel Model.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- When Stopping Requires Going: Physiological Similarities Between Action Cancellation and the Cancellation of Action Cancellation.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Brain mechanisms underlying the inhibitory control of thought.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The ability to stop already-initiated actions is a key cognitive control ability. Recent work on human action-stopping has been dominated by two controversial debates. First, the contributions (and neural signatures) of attentional orienting and motor inhibition after stop-signals are near-impossible to disentangle. Second, the timing of purportedly inhibitory (neuro)physiological activity after stop-signals has called into question which neural signatures reflect processes that actually contribute to action-stopping. Here, we propose that a two-stage model of action-stopping - proposed by Schmidt and Berke (2017) based on subcortical rodent recordings - may resolve these controversies. Translating this model to humans, we first argue that attentional orienting and motor inhibition are inseparable because orienting to salient events like stop-signals automatically invokes broad motor inhibition, reflecting a fast-acting, ubiquitous Pause process. We then argue that inhibitory signatures after stop-signals differ in latency because they map onto two sequential stages: the salience-related Pause and a slower, stop-specific Cancel process. We formulate the model, discuss recent supporting evidence in humans, and interpret existing data within its context.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.