Response Inhibition · Executive Function

Hold Fast

A Go/No-Go task. Most of the time the right move is to act fast — but sometimes the right move is to do nothing at all. This tool makes the tension between speed and self-control visible.

The Rules

Circles will appear one at a time. Your job depends on the color:

GO

Green circle → respond

Press Space or tap the screen as fast as you can.

NO

Red circle → hold fast

Do nothing. Withhold the response completely.

Green circles appear about 3 out of every 4 times, so your finger will want to fire automatically. That's the point — the task measures whether your brakes can catch up to your gas pedal.

You'll do a short practice with feedback, then 60 real trials without feedback. It takes about 3 minutes.

Continue

Before You Begin Predict your performance

Metacognition starts before the task does. Make two honest predictions — you'll compare them against reality at the end.

Out of ~15 red circles, how many times do you predict you'll accidentally respond?

3 / 15

These slips are called commission errors — the gas pedal winning against the brakes.

How fast do you predict your average reaction to green circles will be?

450 ms

For reference: a typical adult average on tasks like this falls somewhere in the 350–550 ms range.

Start practice

Practice 1 / 10

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Press Space or tap · green = respond · red = hold

Practice Complete

The real block is longer and gives no feedback — you'll have to track your own hits and slips internally. Part of the task is noticing your own errors as they happen.

Begin the 60 real trials Practice again

Before The Reveal Estimate what just happened

You just completed 60 trials with no feedback. How well were you monitoring yourself?

How many times do you think you responded to a red circle when you shouldn't have?

−

2

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And your average speed on green circles — what do you estimate now, having felt the task?

450 ms

Show my results

Results The gas pedal vs. the brakes

Reaction time across the block

Each point is one green-circle response. Red markers show where commission errors happened in the sequence. Watch for speeding up right before a slip.

Calibration: prediction → experience → reality

Questions worth sitting with

• Did your errors surprise you, or did you feel each one the instant it happened? Error awareness is itself a measurable skill.
• Look at the chart: were you speeding up before your slips? Many commission errors are the cost of drifting toward automatic responding.
• Was your post-task estimate closer to reality than your prediction? That gap is experience updating your self-model — metacognition doing its job.
• Where in your daily life does the "green circle" pattern take over — and what would a deliberate red-circle pause look like there?

Run it again

Please note: This is an educational self-exploration tool, not a normed clinical or psychometric instrument. It is designed to make cognitive processes visible and discussable — results should be treated as a starting point for reflection, not a diagnosis or a score with clinical meaning.