Go / No-Go Reaction Game

About Go / No-Go

Go / No-Go is a classic task in psychology. Shapes appear one at a time in the middle of the screen. For a green circle you tap, and for a red square with a cross you must not. Because green circles are far more common than red squares, you build up a habit of tapping, and the rare red squares are a test of whether you can stop yourself in time.

A round has 16 trials on the first level and 24 on the last. Each shape stays on screen for about 0.9 seconds at first and about 0.57 seconds later, and the share of green circles rises from 68 to 80 percent. Both missed circles and taps on squares cost points.

How to play

1. Watch the shape in the middle of the screen.
2. Tap the button, or press the space bar, when a green circle is shown. A tap during the short pause after the circle also counts.
3. Do nothing when a red square with a cross is shown.
4. The result tells you how many circles you caught and how many wrong taps you made.

Shapes flash by. Tap for every green circle and do NOT tap for red squares. Taps on red squares cost points, and so do missed circles.

How scoring works

The score is the number of circles you tapped for minus the number of taps on squares, divided by the total number of circles, with a minimum of 0. If a round had 12 circles and you caught 11 and made one wrong tap, you score 83.

The round has between 16 and 24 trials, of which at least 6 are circles and 3 are squares. Circles make up 68 percent of the shapes on level 1 and 80 percent on level 10. A shape stays visible for 900 ms on level 1 and 570 ms on level 10, followed by a pause of 450 ms and 300 ms. The round has no timer, because the pace is set by the shapes.

What it trains

The game trains response inhibition, the ability to stop an action that you have started or prepared. It is a key part of self-control and is used when you stop yourself from pressing the wrong button, braking at a changing light, or biting your tongue.

It also exposes the trade-off between speed and accuracy. If you tap faster, you catch all circles but make more mistakes, and if you slow down you are safe from mistakes but miss circles.

Tips for a higher score

• Wait for the shape to be fully visible, which takes a fraction of a second, before you decide. A tiny wait prevents most false taps.
• Keep your finger above the button, not on it. Resting on it makes you tap by reflex.
• Look at the shape, not at the colour alone: circle means go, square with a cross means stop.
• Do not try to predict the next shape. The order is random, and prediction leads to errors.
• If you make a mistake, forget it and focus on the next shape.

The idea behind it

The go/no-go task goes back to the nineteenth-century work of Franciscus Donders on the measurement of mental processes. In its modern form, with frequent go trials and rare no-go trials, it has been used for decades to study inhibitory control and its neural basis, which involves the right inferior frontal cortex.

Performance is influenced by tiredness, stress and practice. Frequent go trials make the tapping response prepotent, so that errors on no-go trials, known as commission errors, are a measure of how well you can override it. The game offers a simple way to practise, but it is a game, not a diagnostic test.

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Free, no account. Your best scores are saved on your device.