Gradual Continuous Performance Test (Cities & Mountains)
○In reviewPlatform: HTML · English · · verified 59d ago
Description
A variant of the gradCPT design of Esterman et al. (2013) that requires participants to react to city pictures (90% go) and withhold their response for mountain pictures (10% no-go) — evaluating therefore impulsivity. The stimulus pool (10 city + 10 mountain images), trial structure, and timing are reused from that used by Large, Bediou, Hart, Bavelier & Green (2019). It was reimplemented here in jsPsych for stand-alone browser use. Grayscale photographs of cities and mountains fade smoothly from one to the next: a 750 ms linear cross-fade followed by a 50 ms peak-coherence hold gives an 800 ms inter-stimulus onset asynchrony with no abrupt transitions, so target-onset times are implicit rather than discrete and participants must rely on sustained attention to detect the rare mountains in real time. The task runs for 25 practice trials and 300 main trials (~4 min) with a mid-task break at trial 150, and keypresses are attributed to individual trials post-hoc using the original 40–80 % window rules. Behavioural outputs include hit and false-alarm rates, mean reaction time for hits, signal-detection sensitivity (d′), and a vigilance decrement slope across blocks.
Contact & Lab
Contributors
Citation
- Esterman, M., Noonan, S. K., Rosenberg, M., & DeGutis, J. (2013). In the zone or zoning out? Tracking behavioral and neural fluctuations during sustained attention. Cerebral Cortex, 23(11), 2712–2723. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhs261
- Large, A. M., Bediou, B., Hart, Y., Bavelier, D., & Green, C. S. (2019). Cognitive and behavioral correlates of achievement in a complex multi-player video game. Media and Communication, 7(4), 198–212. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v7i4.2314
- Rosvold, H. E., Mirsky, A. F., Sarason, I., Bransome, E. D., & Beck, L. H. (1956). A continuous performance test of brain damage. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 20(5), 343–350. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043220
- Conners, C. K. (2000). Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT II). Multi-Health Systems.
Credits
Adapted from the Brain and Learning Lab (UNIGE) LoL Gamer Cognitive Study battery.
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Modalities
Task Outputs
Measure sustained attention and response inhibition (hits, misses, false alarms, correct rejections, mean RT, d′) over a 4-minute go/no-go stream.
stim_type- Hit rate (% cities responded to)
- False-alarm rate (% mountains responded to)
- Mean RT for hits (ms)
- d′ (sensitivity)
- Vigilance decrement (RT slope across blocks)
| Variable | Role | Type | Description | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
trial_id | metadata | number | Trial index (0-based) | - |
stim_type | independent | string | Stimulus category Values: city, mountain | - |
stim_file | metadata | string | Filename of the displayed image | - |
response | dependent | boolean | Whether the participant pressed space | - |
correctstar | dependent | boolean | Hit or correct rejection | - |
rt | dependent | number | RT from stimulus onset to keypress (null if no response) | ms |
is_practice | metadata | boolean | Whether this trial is in the practice block | - |
Provenance
Source: nccr-seed
Fetched: 2026-04-29
Last verified: 2026-05-19 — passed