The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Go/No-Go Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_go_no_go

Family: Response inhibition and stopping tasks

Also known as: GNG, Go No-Go, Go/No-Go

Responses required to frequent “go” stimuli must be withheld on rare “no-go” stimuli; commission errors and N2/P3 ERPs index response inhibition.

Description

The Go/No-Go Task measures response inhibition by requiring participants to respond quickly to frequent “go” stimuli while withholding responses to infrequent “no-go” stimuli. The typical ratio is 70-80% go and 20-30% no-go trials, creating a strong prepotent tendency to respond. Performance is measured by go-trial RT (engagement), go-trial accuracy (compliance), and no-go accuracy / false alarm rate (inhibitory control). The task is simpler than the Stop-Signal task as it measures the ability to withhold (rather than cancel) a response.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

Stimuli appear one at a time; participants respond (Go) to frequent targets and withhold (No-Go) responses to infrequent non-targets.

Manipulation

Go/No-Go ratio (typically 70:30 or 80:20); ISI; stimulus type; response deadline.

Measurement

Commission errors (false alarms to No-Go); omission errors; Go RT; No-Go N2 and P3 ERP components.

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Standard Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__standard_go_no_go

Frequent go stimuli (75–80%), infrequent no-go stimuli (20–25%).

Canonical: respond to go, withhold to no-go; measures response inhibition

Emotional Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__emotional_go_no_go

Emotional faces or words as go/no-go stimuli; probes emotion-cognition interaction.

Emotional stimuli as go/no-go signals; retained per §5.1 (EMOT retired)

Reward/Punishment Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__reward_punishment_go_no_go

Pavlovian-instrumental transfer paradigm—reward biases go, punishment biases no-go.

Monetary outcomes for correct responses; motivation manipulation changes decision context

Probabilistic Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__probabilistic_go_no_go

Varying go/no-go ratios (50/50 to 90/10) to manipulate prepotency.

Probabilistic rather than deterministic stimulus-response rules; different learning structure

Cued Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__cued_go_no_go

Pre-trial cues signal likely go or no-go, allowing proactive control.

Preparatory cue precedes imperative signal; different temporal structure

Flanked Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__flanked_go_no_go

Go/no-go stimuli flanked by distractors; combines inhibition and selective attention.

Go/no-go signal surrounded by flanking distractors; adds conflict component

Reversal Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__reversal_go_no_go

Mid-task contingency reversal; previously-go stimuli become no-go.

Go/no-go assignments reverse mid-task; tests reversal of inhibitory mappings

Saccadic Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__saccadic_go_no_go

Eye movements as responses; oculomotor inhibition.

Eye movement response instead of button press; different response effector

Multi-Stimulus Go/No-Go

hedvar_go_no_go__multi_stimulus_go_no_go

Multiple go stimuli and multiple no-go stimuli; more complex stimulus-response mapping.

Multiple stimulus categories with different go/no-go rules; more complex rule set

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Donders, F. C. (1969/1868). On the speed of mental processes. Acta Psychologica, 30, 412-431. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Garavan, H., Ross, T. J., & Stein, E. A. (1999). Right hemispheric dominance of inhibitory control: An event-related functional MRI study. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96(14), 8301-8306. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Simmonds, D. J., Pekar, J. J., & Mostofsky, S. H. (2008). Meta-analysis of Go/No-go tasks demonstrating that fMRI activation associated with response inhibition is task-dependent. Neuropsychologia, 46(1), 224-232. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • Wessel, J. R. (2018). Prepotent motor activity and inhibitory control demands in different variants of the go/no-go paradigm. Psychophysiology, 55(3), e12871. (DOI)

  • Swick, D., Ashley, V., & Turken, U. (2011). Are the neural correlates of stopping and not going identical? Quantitative meta-analysis of two response inhibition tasks. NeuroImage, 56(3), 1655–1665. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Criaud, M., & Boulinguez, P. (2013). Have we been asking the right questions when assessing response inhibition in go/no-go tasks with fMRI? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(1), 11–23. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Littman, R., & Takács, Á. (2017). Do all inhibitions act alike? A study of Go/No-Go and stop-signal paradigms using drift-diffusion modeling. PLOS ONE, 12(10), e0186774. (DOI, PubMed)