OSARI, an Open-Source Anticipated Response Inhibition Task
DOI: 10.3758/s13428-021-01680-9
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Summary
This paper introduces OSARI (Open-Source Anticipated Response Inhibition), a free, open-source software implementation of the anticipated response inhibition (ARI) task, designed to assess behavioral inhibition. While the stop-signal paradigm is ubiquitous in cognitive neuroscience, the most widely used variant is the choice-reaction task (e.g., STOP-IT). ARI tasks offer a distinct advantage by requiring participants to time a response to a predictable event, thereby mitigating "strategic slowing"—a common issue in choice-reaction tasks where participants deliberately slow responses to improve inhibition success, which biases stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) estimates. Despite the growing popularity of ARI tasks, particularly in neurophysiological studies involving transcranial magnetic stimulation, no open-source implementation existed, limiting their adoption. This study addresses that gap by providing OSARI, programmed in PsychoPy, to facilitate standardized research on inhibitory control. OSARI is a cross-platform application that guides users through participant data collection and parameter configuration. The task structure includes practice blocks for go trials and mixed go/stop trials, followed by test blocks containing 75% go trials and 25% stop trials. On go trials, participants press and hold a key to start a filling bar and release it to stop the bar at a predefined target; feedback is provided via color changes based on accuracy. On stop trials, the bar stops automatically before the target, and participants must withhold their response. The software supports both staircase and fixed stop-signal delay (SSD) methods, with the staircase method adjusting SSDs based on performance to estimate the SSD at which inhibition succeeds 50% of the time. OSARI generates detailed data files compatible with BASTD (Batch Analysis of Stop signal Task Data), an accompanying R package for analyzing and visualizing SSRTs and other performance metrics. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of using OSARI. They note that while ARI and choice-reaction tasks share the stop-signal paradigm, they may measure different types of inhibition, as evidenced by low shared variance in SSRT estimates between the two methods. The paper emphasizes the importance of checking model assumptions, such as context independence, when estimating SSRTs. By providing an accessible, standardized tool, OSARI aims to encourage broader use of ARI tasks, allowing researchers to select the variant best suited for their specific experimental needs, such as studies requiring precise timing of motor preparation or those utilizing neurophysiological measures. The availability of OSARI and BASTD promotes cross-study standardization and advances the understanding of inhibitory control at both behavioral and neural levels.
Key finding
The authors successfully developed and validated OSARI, a free, cross-platform software implementation of the anticipated response inhibition task, along with an accompanying analysis package to support standardized research on behavioral inhibition.
Methodology
other
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Methodological Resource: measurement protocol