Go/no-go test
Press for the green lamp with a dot. Do nothing for the orange lamp with a bar.
Example
Example
An example to explore. No score or practice round is recorded.
The shorter round. One lamp at a time.
Each signal stays 0.8 seconds. The dark gap before it is 1.2 to 1.8 seconds.
80 signals, 20 of them to hold back on. About 3 minutes.
Tap the pad below the lamp for a green dot. (Or press Space.) Do nothing for an orange bar.
Six practice signals come first. They do not count.
- Signals done
- 0 / 80
- Active time
- 0:00
Press for one signal, hold back for the other
Press Space, or the pad below the lamp, for a green dot. Do nothing for an orange bar.
The round ends after the last signal. End stops it, and a round you stop records nothing.
The lamp is off. Wait.
- Answered in time
- Not measured
- Correct stops
- Not measured
- False presses
- 0
- Missed go signals
- 0
- Median go time
- Not measured
- Set aside
- None
- Stop-signal time
- Not measured
Round details
These numbers are what you did on this screen today. They are not a diagnosis of anything.
A touchscreen, a keyboard, a slow screen and a tired day all move them.
Explore the method
Keep a steady pace, and hold back only for the no-go signal.
On by default unless you turn it off. Saved choices are kept. Shares starts, completions, replays and error categories. For ChatGPT visits, starts and completions may include the first QuickenBrain page and country. No answers, drawings or names.
How this data is usedHelp
A go/no-go task builds a habit of pressing, then asks you to hold it back. Most of the signals want a press, so pressing becomes automatic. The few that do not are what the round is for.
A stop signal task goes further. You start the press, and only then are you told to cancel it. The delay before that instruction follows you: it grows when you manage to stop and shrinks when you do not.
From those delays the stop signal round works out a stop-signal time by the integration method, and it shows one only when two checks pass. You have to press through between a quarter and three quarters of the stop signals, and the presses you make on them have to be faster than your ordinary go presses. When a check fails the round says so instead of printing a number.
Some people call it a go/no-go task, some a response inhibition test. The work is the same. Watch the lamp, press for one signal, sit still for the other.
This is practice, not a clinical or diagnostic test. A round is a count of what you did on this screen, and it says nothing about any condition.
About this practice
How to play
In the go/no-go round, press for the green lamp with a dot and do nothing for the orange lamp with a bar. In the stop signal round, press the way the arrow points, unless the lamp turns orange first.
Space answers the go/no-go round. The left and right arrow keys answer the stop signal round. The pad under the lamp does the same. Escape or End ends the round.
A press is timed from the moment the lamp is painted, not from the moment the page asks for it. The clock stops while the tab is in the background, and the signals stop with it.
A press before the lamp is lit, or inside 150 ms of it, is too early to be an answer. That trial is set aside and counted on its own line. A key held down repeats while the lamp is off, so holding one down scores nothing.
A press just after the lamp goes out is too late to answer a go signal, so that signal counts as a missed one. On a signal to hold back on it still counts as a press, because holding back means pressing nothing at all. Either way it is said at once and counted on its own line.
A round is two counts, not one score: the signals you pressed for, and the ones you held back on. Pressing for everything empties the second count. Pressing for nothing empties the first.
A timed round has no undo. One signal you get wrong costs that one trial out of the round, the six practice signals cost nothing, and a round you end early is not saved at all.
The level changes how long each signal stays and how long the dark gap before it is. It also changes how many signals are there to hold back on: a quarter at level 1, a fifth at level 2 and 15 in every 100 at level 3. In the stop signal round every arrow stays 0.7 seconds and the level changes the gap alone.
In the stop signal round the delay before the orange lamp starts at 0.25 seconds. It grows 0.05 seconds after a stop that worked and shrinks 0.05 seconds after one that did not. It never passes 0.6 seconds, because the arrow itself stays up for 0.7 seconds.
Finish a round to save it in this browser. The statistics page compares rounds in the same round type, level and input device, because a finger and a key are not the same measurement.
A browser time is not a laboratory time. Your screen, your keyboard and how tired you are all move these numbers, and they move from day to day.
The lesson behind this practice: Hold the press
A go/no-go test in your browser. Press for one signal and do nothing for the other. A stop signal round is there too, and some places call both a response inhibition test.
Each round shows one signal at a time, and you respond or hold back. In Go/no-go, press Space or the answer pad for a green dot. Hold back for an orange bar. In Stop signal, press the left or right arrow key, or that half of the pad, to match an arrow. If an orange stop signal appears, cancel the press. The shapes distinguish the signals as well as their colors.
Both modes begin with 6 practice signals with feedback. These do not count toward your result.
What each level changes
For Go/no-go, the level changes the signal duration, the dark gap before each signal and the number of signals to hold back on:
- Level 1: 80 signals, including 20 orange bars. Each signal lasts 0.8 seconds; the dark gap lasts 1.2 to 1.8 seconds.
- Level 2: 80 signals, including 16 orange bars. Each signal lasts 0.5 seconds; the dark gap lasts 0.9 to 1.3 seconds.
- Level 3: 100 signals, including 15 orange bars. Each signal lasts 0.4 seconds; the dark gap lasts 0.7 to 1.1 seconds.
Stop signal has 192 arrows in 4 blocks of 48, with breaks between blocks. 48 arrows include a stop signal. Every arrow allows 0.7 seconds to respond; the level changes only the dark gaps listed above.
A worked example
Imagine four signals within a Go/no-go round: a green dot that you press for in 320 ms, an orange bar that you leave alone, a green dot that you miss, then an orange bar that you press for in 360 ms.
For those four signals, Answered in time is 1 of 2 and Correct stops is 1 of 2. There is 1 missed go signal and 1 false press. Median go time is 320 ms: only the correct go response contributes to it. The false press does not make that median slower.
In Stop signal, imagine a right arrow followed by an orange bar after 250 ms. If you hold back, the next stop delay rises to 300 ms, leaving less time to cancel. A failed stop lowers the delay by the same amount. The delay adapts within the arrow’s response window.
What your result means
Read the go responses and correct stops together with the median time. In Stop signal, pressing the wrong arrow direction counts as a missed go signal. A press before a signal or less than 150 ms after it is set aside and excluded from both the go and stop totals. It earns no credit. A press just after a go signal disappears is too late; just after a signal to hold back on, it still counts as a false press.
Stop-signal time is an estimate from response times and stop delays, available only in Stop signal. It needs at least 10 go response times, presses on 25% to 75% of the stop signals, and a shorter average time for failed stops than for go responses. If these checks fail or the calculation gives an unusable time, the result says Not measured and explains why. The response and stop counts still apply.
If you end early, the result uses only recorded signals and is not saved. Only complete rounds are added to statistics. Signals and the clock pause when the tab is in the background. Compare the same mode, level and input device; these results describe the round you played.
Practice the rule in the lesson Hold the press. The guide Go/no-go test: how to read the result explains why stopping and response times should be read together.
For a broader mix of practices, explore the attention practice test. Sign in free to start a test.
Report a problem
On by default unless you turn it off. Saved choices are kept. Shares starts, completions, replays and error categories. For ChatGPT visits, starts and completions may include the first QuickenBrain page and country. No answers, drawings or names.
How this data is used