Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > The role of motivation, glucose and self-contro...

Electronic data

  • fetchObject.action

    Rights statement: Copyright: © 2015 Kelly et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

    Final published version, 1.03 MB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

The role of motivation, glucose and self-control in the antisaccade task

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
Article numbere0122218
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>31/03/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>PLoS ONE
Issue number3
Volume10
Number of pages15
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Research shows that self-control is resource limited and there is a gradual weakening in consecutive self-control task performance akin to muscle fatigue. A body of evidence suggests that the resource is glucose and consuming glucose reduces this effect. This study examined the effect of glucose on performance in the antisaccade task - which requires self-control through generating a voluntary eye movement away from a target - following self-control exertion in the Stroop task. The effects of motivation and individual differences in self-control were also explored. In a double-blind design, 67 young healthy adults received a 25g glucose or inert placebo drink. Glucose did not enhance antisaccade performance following self-control exertion in the Stroop task. Motivation however, predicted performance on the antisaccade task; more specifically high motivation ameliorated performance decrements observed after initial self-control exertion. In addition, individuals with high levels of self-control performed better on certain aspects of the antisaccade task after administration of a glucose drink. The results of this study suggest that the antisaccade task might be a powerful paradigm, which could be used as a more objective measure of self-control. Moreover, the results indicate that level of motivation and individual differences in self-control should be taken into account when investigating deficiencies in self-control following prior exertion.

Bibliographic note

© 2015 Kelly et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.