Go/No-Go Task

Maximum Trial Duration

The most critical component in designing an inhibitory control task is to ensure that motor activity is elicited on each trial, so that No-Go trials truly test inhibitory control. Researchers attempt to elicit prepotent motor activity ("Go") by presenting trials at a rapid pace, so that responses will have to be made quickly. However, there is considerable variation in maximum trial durations across studies, and while most studies present stimuli at a relatively rapid pace, almost 20% of studies use maximum trial durations greater than 4000 ms. Below are the frequencies for different levels of trial durations across studies by their method of measurement.