Efficient inhibitory control is vital. However, environmental cues can influence motor
control especially in an emotional context. One common task to measure inhibitory
control is the stop-signal task (SST), which asks participants to respond to go stimuli
knowing that on some trials a stop signal will be presented, requiring them to inhibit
their response. This paradigm estimates the ability to inhibit already-initiated
responses by calculating participants' stop-signal reaction times (SSRT), an index of
inhibitory control. Here, we aim to review the existing, often contradictory, evidence on
the influence of emotional stimuli on the inhibitory process. We aim to discuss which
factors may reveal an interference as well as an advantage of emotional stimuli on
action inhibition performance. Finally, we review the existing evidence that has
investigated the effect of such stimuli on action inhibition in the psychiatric population.
Important factors are the relevance, the intensity and the valence of the emotional
stimulus, as well as the affected component of the motor control. From all this
evidence, it is clear that understand precisely how emotion is integrated into core
executive functions, such as inhibitory control, is essential not only for cognitive
neuroscience, but also for refining neurocognitive models of psychopathology.