Go/No-Go Task: The Hard Part Is Not Tapping
The Go/No-Go task is the standard laboratory measure of inhibitory control. Shapes appear one per second and you tap for circles — which quickly becomes a habit — until a square arrives and you have to stop a movement that is already underway. Most people find the tapping trivial and the not-tapping surprisingly hard. That gap is the whole measurement, and this version scores it with d′ rather than raw accuracy so the easy trials can't flatter you.
Not a diagnostic tool. Go/No-Go tasks appear widely in research on ADHD, autism, and substance use, so results from them are easy to over-read. This version is a practice and self-tracking exercise: it is not validated, not normed, and it cannot screen for or indicate any condition.
A quiet round of Go/No-Go Task — Standard. When you start, everything else fades — just you and the task.
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How to play
- A shape appears for about half a second, roughly once per second.
- Circle: tap the panel, or press the space bar. Go as fast as you comfortably can.
- Square: do nothing at all. Three out of four shapes are circles, so the urge to tap will already be running.
- The task runs on its own clock — you can't speed it up or pause it. It takes under a minute.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Go/No-Go task measure?+
Response inhibition — your ability to cancel an action you have already started preparing. Because most trials call for a response, tapping becomes the default, and every No-Go trial asks you to override that default under time pressure.
Why isn't my score just my accuracy?+
Because accuracy here has a ceiling. Three quarters of the trials are easy Go trials, so almost everyone lands above 90% overall and the number tells you nothing. The signal lives in the few trials where you tapped on a square. This test scores with d′ from signal detection theory, which compares your hit rate against your false-alarm rate — so two sessions with identical overall accuracy can score very differently, which is exactly the point.
Should I go as fast as possible?+
Fast, but not reckless. Speed can only move your score by about 15% here, deliberately: in this task, mashing the panel as fast as possible produces excellent Go performance and terrible inhibition, and rewarding that would reward the very failure the task exists to expose. Speed only counts once your d′ is high.
Does this show whether I have ADHD?+
No. Go/No-Go tasks are used in research on ADHD, autism, and substance use, which is exactly why it's worth being clear: this version has no clinical validation, no age-matched norms, and no trained administration. A low score on one run means you had a distracted minute, nothing more. If you have real concerns about your attention or impulsivity, talk to a professional.
What counts as a false start?+
Tapping on a square — a commission error, in the literature. Missing a circle is an omission error, and it's counted separately because it means something different: false starts point to weak braking, misses point to attention drifting off the task altogether.
Where this fits
- Mind Wandering — The closest thing here to what researchers actually use. It reports missed circles separately from false starts, and the missed ones are the drift: the shape was there, on its own clock, and you were not.
Try another challenge
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Trail Making Test
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Change Blindness Test
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