Monetary Incentive Delay Task - Go/No Go

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Millisecond thanks Ricardo Wilhelm for his collaboration on this script!

Created: January 15, 2016

Last Modified: January 03, 2024 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Monetary Incentive Delay GoNogo Task; a task to induce anticipation of reward and punishment within the inhibition and control framework of a go/nogo task.

The implemented procedure is based on the published procedure in Behan et al (2015).

References

Behan, B., Stone, A., and Garavan, H. (2015). Right Prefrontal and Ventral Striatum Interactions Underlying Impulsive Choice and Impulsive Responding. Human Brain Mapping, 36, 187–198.

Duration

40 minutes

Description

Participants work through a cued gongo task with certain (= always followed by a go target) and uncertain (= half followed by a go and half are followed by a nogo target) go cues. Half the go cues (e.g. all green go cues) result in the possibility of a monetary reward, half the nogo cues (e.g. all green nogo cues) result in the possibility of a monetary loss. In a typical trial, participants see a fixation cross followed by a cue (either a square or a circle in either blue or green) for a variable time. The target (either a star = go or a stop sign = nogo) follows the cue. When participants see the star, they have to press the Spacebar as fast as possible. If the color of the cue was green, they will earn money for a hit response. When participants see the stop sign, they have to withold the response. If the color of the cue was green, they will lose money for a false alarm response but gain money for a correct rejection.

Procedure

2 cue shapes (square vs. circle):
- certain cue (here: square)
- uncertain cue (here: circle)

2 cue reward colors (green vs. blue)
- monetary reinforced (reward, here: green)
- no monetary reinforcement (neutral, here: blue)

6 trial types:
CCGo_reward: certain go cue, can result in a monetary gain but no monetary loss
CCGo_neutral: certain go cue, cannot result in a monetary gain nor in a monetary loss
UCGo_reward: uncertain go cue with go target, can result in a monetary gain but no monetary loss
UCGo_neutral: uncertain go cue with go target, cannot result in a monetary gain nor in a monetary loss
UCNogo_reward: uncertain go cue with nogo target, can result in a monetary loss OR a monetary gain
UCNogo_neutral: uncertain go cue with nogo target, cannot result in a monetary loss nor in a monetary gain

1. Practice Block: 12 trials (2 of each trialtype)
2. 5 Test Blocks of 30 trials (5 of each trialtype) = 150 test trials total
(number of testblocks/number of trials per block are editable under section Editable Parameters)
- the order of the 6 trial types is randomized

!!! the script is set up in such a way that the following constraints can be imposed on the sampling process:
- no repeats of the same trials
- A UCGo_reward and UCNogo_reward trials are not presented one after another
- A UCGo_neutral and UCNogo_neutral trials are not presented one after another
Since sampling is done on the fly - in some circumstances not all constraints might be fulfilled.
To add those constraints, go to list.midRunTrialOrder under section 'BLOCKS' and follow instructions.


- 6 different fixation cross durations/cue durations are used an equal number of times within each block (see section Editable Lists)
- go target duration (= variable response window): starts at 400ms and decreases by 50ms with each hit and increases by 50ms with each miss
- nogo target duration (= constant response window): stays at 600ms
- go feedback: duration + last responsewindow = 2000ms
- nogo feedback: duration + last responsewindow = 2000 (because responsewindow stays constant, feedback duration stays constant)

Trial Sequence:
fixation cross (btw. 2.2s-7.5s) -> cue (btw. 2.5s-7.5s) -> target (go target: dynamically adapted response window; nogo target: 600ms response window)-> feedback (go feedback: dynamically adapted duration ; nogo feedback; 1400ms)

Stimuli

provided by Millisecond, see section Editable Stimuli

Instructions

provided by Millisecond in the form of htm-files, see section Editable Instructions

Summary Data

File Name: monetaryincentivedelay_gonogo_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
certainGoShape The shape of the certain Go shape
uncertainGoShape The shape of the uncertain Go shape
rewardColor The color of the shapes that get reinforced
neutralColor The color of the reinforcement neutral shapes
propCorrect Proportion correct response across all go and nogo trials
meanRT Mean hit latency (in ms) across all go trials
sd Standard deviation of all hit latencies (across all go trials)
cc: certain cue (for a go-trial),
uc: uncertain cue (could be followed by a go or nogo trial)
omissionsCCGo Number of omission errors in certain cue go-trials
rOmmissionCCGo Omission error rate in certain cue go-trials
rHitCCGo Hit rate in certain cue go-trials
omissionsUCGo Number of omission errors in UCGo trials
rOmissionUCGo Omission error rate in UCGo trials
rHitUCGo Hit rate in UCGo trials
commissionsUCNoGo Number of commission errors in UCNogo trials
rCommissionUCNoGo Commission error rate in UCNogo trials
rCorrRejectUCNoGo Correct rejection rate in UCNogo trials
Signal Detection Measures
zHitRateUC Z-score of the rHitUCGo
zFaRateUC Z-score of the commissionsUCNogo
*Adjustments to z-scores as recommended by
Gregg, A. & Sedikides, C. (2010). Narcissistic Fragility
Rethinking Its Links to Explicit and Implicit Self-esteem, Self and Identity, 9:2, 142-161 (p.148)
=> Adjustments are made if the FArate (hitRate) = 0 (increased to 0.005) or 1 (decreased to 0.995)*
dPrimeUC Computes d' (parametric measure of discriminability btw. signals and noise) for UC (uncertain cue) Trials
=> Range (in this script)
-5.1516586840152740479 <= dprime <= 5.1516586840152740479 (=perfect performance)
=> The higher the value, the better signals (go stims) were distinguished from noise (nogo stims)
(d' = 0: chance performance; negative d-primes: participant treated nontargets as targets and targets as nontargets)
cUC C-criterion in signal detection:The absolute value of c provides an indication of the strength of
the response bias/response style for UC (uncertain cue) Trials
negative: participant more likely to report that signal (go stims) is present (liberal response style)
may favor faster responding in speed-accuracy trade-off response paradigms
positive: favoring caution (conservative response style)
Response Time Data
meanRTCCGo Mean hit latency (in ms) in CCGo trials
sdCCGo Standard deviation of all CCGo hit latencies
meanRTUCGo Mean hit latency (in ms) in UCGo trials
sdUCGo Standard deviation of all UCGo hit latencies

Raw Data

File Name: monetaryincentivedelay_gonogo_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
build Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject, group, With the current subject/groupnumber
session Session number
blockCode Name of the current block
blockNum Number of the current block
trialCode Name of the current trial
trialNum Number of the current trial
certainGoShape The shape of the certain Go shape
uncertainGoShape The shape of the uncertain Go shape
rewardColor The color of the shapes that get reinforced
neutralColor The color of the reinforcement neutral shapes
trialType "CCGo" (certain cue), "UCGo" (uncertain cue->go), "UCNogo" (uncertain cue-> nogo)
fixationDuration The duration (in ms) of the fixation cross
cue 1 = green square
2 = blue square
3 = green circle
4 = blue circle
cueShape Stores the shape of the cue
cueColor Stores the color of the cue
cueDuration The duration (in ms) of the cue
reinforcement "reward" vs. "neutral"
target 0 = star (go)
1 = stop (nogo)
targetStim Stores the target image presented
goResponseWindow The current response window (in ms) for go trials
response The participant's response
correct The correctness of the response (1 = correct; 0 = incorrect)
latency The response latency (in ms)
feedback 0 = gain
1 = loss
2 = happy
3 = sad
feedbackDuration The current duration (in ms) of feedback stimulus
total The total earned

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
Responsekey
goKey The go-response key " " -> Spacebar
Sizing Parameters
fixationSize Proportional sizing of fixation cross 5% of canvas height
cueSize Proportional sizing of cue size 20% of canvas height
targetSize Proportional sizing of target size 20% of canvas height
feedbackSize Proportional sizing of feedback image size 20% of canvas height
Timing Parameters
startGOResponseWindow Start duration (in ms) of go response window 400ms
noGoResponseWindow Constant duration (in ms) of nogo response window 600ms
goRWAdjustment Duration adjustment (in ms) of the go response window 50ms
defaultFeedbackDuration Default feedback duration (in ms)
the feedback duration will get increased by the current response window
1400ms
getReadyDurationMS The duration (in ms) of the get-ready trial 2000ms
Design Parameters
monetaryGain The monetary gain for a go hit/nogo correction rejection in the reward condition 0.2
monetaryLoss The monetary loss for a nogo false alarm in the reward condition 0.4
numberOfTestBlocks Sets the number of test blocks run 5
numberOfTestTrials Sets the number of test trials run per test block
needs to be a multiple of 6
30