Need a Cognitive Psychology Task? You’ve Come to The Right Place!
Overview
These are the tasks I made in PyCharm with assistance from AI. I included both the .exe and .py files so you can either edit them to suit your needs or run them as is. Here I have included executables and Python files for ease of use. I also have these tasks and code on GitHub. The purpose of this page is to share these tasks with counselors, psychotherapists, researchers, and students who have no experience with coding.
Cognitive tasks either provide strong evidence of their use in psychotherapy or indicate the need for more research. Discussions and citations are included to demonstrate their potential. More research needs to be done before their use in forensic and psychotherapy is widespread.
I update this website relatively frequently to include more code and executables. The codes and tasks are found here, on the first page. The second page contains executables for commonly used psychological assessments. The third page contains a link to my GitHub repository, where the code can be cloned into your IDE. There is also advice for beginner coders. The fourth slide, I do not update frequently, but it contains more discussions and research on cognitive tasks. The fifth and final page contains citations and links to my current research projects.
These codes were built with a keyboard and number pad in mind. The number pad was altered to use colored key caps instead of the standard key caps. Button configurations need to be organized, simple, replicable, and preferably relatively inexpensive. I believe the number pad option is ideal and meets these criteria. Demonstrations on these are coming.
If you want to use this website please cite my presentation:
DiPonzio, T. (2026, March 23). Cognitive Tasks For Psychotherapy & Counseling [Conference Poster]. Warner Research Days, Rochester, NY, United States. 10.13140/RG.2.2.17392.32009
Stroop Task
Py File
Executable files
Keyboard version of executable
Rationale and Discussion
The Stroop task is a measure of executive function and impulse regulation. You will be shown words in blue, red, green, or yellow ink and must press the corresponding button. There are some variations of the Stroop Task, such as the Drug Stroop (Carpenter et al., 2006) and a Pain-Salient version (Roelofs et al., 2002).
I also include a scary stroop, which displays a frightening image for 300 milliseconds and then proceeds to the standard Stroop task. A task designed to mimic traumatic events as a way of measuring how similar stimuli can affect cognitive processing ability. There are multiple kinds of strops that can be accessed, including salient terms related to past traumatic events (Fan & Kang, 2025; Khanna et al., 2017; Ueda et al., 2025).
Citations and Further Reading
Carpenter, K. M., Schreiber, E., Church, S., & McDowell, D. (2006). Drug Stroop performance: relationships with primary substance of use and treatment outcome in a drug-dependent outpatient sample. Addictive behaviors, 31(1), 174–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.04.012
Ceceli, A. O., Huang, Y., Gaudreault, P. O., McClain, N. E., King, S. G., Kronberg, G., Brackett, A., Hoberman, G. N., Gray, J. H., Garland, E. L., Alia-Klein, N., & Goldstein, R. Z. (2023). Recovery of inhibitory control prefrontal cortex function in inpatients with heroin use disorder: a 15-week longitudinal fMRI study. medRxiv:: the preprint server for health sciences, 2023.03.28.23287864. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.28.23287864
DeVito, E. E., Kiluk, B. D., Nich, C., Mouratidis, M., & Carroll, K. M. (2018). Drug Stroop: Mechanisms of response to computerized cognitive behavioral therapy for cocaine dependence in a randomized clinical trial. Drug and alcohol dependence, 183, 162–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.10.022
Fan, L., & Kang, T. (2025). Early childhood trauma and its long-term impact on cognitive and emotional development: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of medicine, 57(1), 2536199. https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2025.2536199
Khanna, M. M., Badura-Brack, A. S., McDermott, T. J., Embury, C. M., Wiesman, A. I., Shepherd, A., Ryan, T. J., Heinrichs-Graham, E., & Wilson, T. W. (2017). Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder exhibit altered emotional processing and attentional control during an emotional Stroop task. Psychological medicine, 47(11), 2017–2027. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291717000460
Roelofs, J., Peters, M. L., Zeegers, M. P., & Vlaeyen, J. W. (2002). The modified Stroop paradigm as a measure of selective attention towards pain-related stimuli among chronic pain patients: a meta-analysis. European journal of pain (London, England), 6(4), 273–281. https://doi.org/10.1053/eujp.2002.0337
Ueda, N., Lin, M., Itoh, M., Hori, H., Narita, Z., Niwa, M., Ino, K., Narita, M., Nakano, W., Imai, R., Matsui, M., Kamo, T., & Kim, Y. (2025). Decreased non-emotional working memory capacity in women with PTSD: association with symptomatology. European journal of psychotraumatology, 16(1), 2543079. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2025.2543079
Face Emotional Recognition Task
Rationale and Discussion
The FERT is a task designed to assess bias in emotional processing by presenting different facial expressions alongside several other faces. This task asks you to sort faces into different emotional categories. Both reaction time and accuracy are assessed. Zhang and colleagues (2016) found that individuals with different personality disorders responded differently to the task. Individuals with Narsissistic Personality Disorder had worse performance on happy faces, and individuals with Anti-social Personality Disorder had only accuracy overall. Borderline personality disorder was not investigated, but has been investigated by other researchers (Wrege et al., 2021; Daros et al., 2013). Major Depressive Disorder was also investigated by Krause and colleagues (2021).
I would like to discuss some shortcomings in this task. I used AI to create the faces, and AI is not great at human emotions. Additionally, I intended this task to be diverse, but I included only three races and no ethnic subgroups, so it’s less diverse and therefore less transferable to real-world contexts. Although the differences in facial identification between individuals of different ethnic backgrounds are not major in real life, they are measured in milliseconds. Wong and colleagues (2020) discuss this in more detail, focusing on accuracy and the number of faces being shown.
I am working on updating the task to include faces of the Chicago Face Database (Ma et al., 2015).
Citations and Further Reading
Daros, A. R., Zakzanis, K. K., & Ruocco, A. C. (2013). Facial emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder. Psychological medicine, 43(9), 1953–1963. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291712002607
Krause, F. C., Linardatos, E., Fresco, D. M., & Moore, M. T. (2021). Facial emotion recognition in major depressive disorder: A meta-analytic review. Journal of affective disorders, 293, 320–328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.06.053
Ma, D. S., Correll, J., & Wittenbrink, B. (2015). The Chicago face database: A free stimulus set of faces and norming data. Behavior research methods, 47(4), 1122–1135. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0532-5
Streit, M., Ioannides, A. A., Liu, L., Wölwer, W., Dammers, J., Gross, J., Gaebel, W., & Müller-Gärtner, H. W. (1999). Neurophysiological correlates of the recognition of facial expressions of emotion as revealed by magnetoencephalography. Brain research. Cognitive brain research, 7(4), 481–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0926-6410(98)00048-2
Wong, H. K., Stephen, I. D., & Keeble, D. R. T. (2020). The Own-Race Bias for Face Recognition in a Multiracial Society. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 208. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00208
Wrege, J. S., Ruocco, A. C., Carcone, D., Lang, U. E., Lee, A. C. H., & Walter, M. (2021). Facial Emotion Perception in Borderline Personality Disorder: Differential Neural Activation to Ambiguous and Threatening Expressions and Links to Impairments in Self and Interpersonal Functioning. Journal of Affective Disorders, 284, 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.01.042
Zhang, B., Shen, C., Zhu, Q., Ma, G., & Wang, W. (2016). Processing of facial expressions of emotions in Antisocial, Narcissistic, and Schizotypal personality disorders: An event-related potential study. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.066
Reaction Time Instrument for Depression
Rationale and Discussion
My professor designed this task as an example of negativity bias in individuals with depression. Negativity bias is associated with certain symptoms of depression (Beevers et al., 2020). It’s a great task, and the code is a great reference for future codes.
Citations and Further Reading
Boxell, O. (2025). Neuropsychological Deep Structure: The Electromagnetic Emergence of Human Nature, Psychopathology, and the Scope of Clinical Mental Health Intervention. ProQuest Global.
Beevers, C. G., Mullarkey, M. C., Dainer-Best, J., Stewart, R. A., Labrada, J., Allen, J. J. B., McGeary, J. E., & Shumake, J. (2019). Association between negative cognitive bias and depression: A symptom-level approach. Journal of abnormal psychology, 128(3), 212–227. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000405
Flanker
Py File
Here is the python file, feel free to download and edit.
Executable files
Because the flanker task requires only two buttons I just used the keyboard. I used the P and Q keys and the side of the keyboard they are match the direction of the middle flanker.
Rationale and Discussion
Dillon and colleagues (2015) investigated 100 subjects with MDD and 40 control subjects. They found that subjects with MDD were, on average, more accurate with incongruent (80% vs 76%) and were, on average, 30 milliseconds slower.
This was found to be significant in the study; however, the clusters remain very close together.
Li and colleagues (2024) found that individuals with schizophrenia showed greater flanker interference.
Overall, the flanker task shows little sensitivity and specificity across different psychopathologies. However, the task is a psychological classic and can be used as a distractor or as a second task in other research.
Dillon, D. G., Wiecki, T., Pechtel, P., Webb, C., Goer, F., Murray, L., Trivedi, M., Fava, M., McGrath, P. J., Weissman, M., Parsey, R., Kurian, B., Adams, P., Carmody, T., Weyandt, S., Shores-Wilson, K., Toups, M., McInnis, M., Oquendo, M. A., Cusin, C., … Pizzagalli, D. A. (2015). A computational analysis of flanker interference in depression. Psychological medicine, 45(11), 2333–2344. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715000276
Li, Q., Xu, H., Ren, Q., He, S., Hu, K., & Li, C.-S. R. (2024). Schizophrenia patients show impaired bottom-up processing and attentional adjustment. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 43(16), 14324–14334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05355-w
Navon Task
Rationale and Discussion
De Fockert and Cooper (2014) is one excellent article that shows what I want to research one day. Their experiment had two condition groups, one with individuals with more severe self-reports of depression and the other with individuals with milder self-reports of depression. Individuals with higher self-reports of depression were slower at responding to the global Navon conditions when compared to the other group. This is in line with Frederickson’s Broaden and Build Theory (2004). I liked this because it reminds me of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943), but with cognition and actual quantifiable information. As such, I want to create this task for this website.
Citations and Further Reading
Dillon, D. G., Wiecki, T., Pechtel, P., Webb, C., Goer, F., Murray, L., Trivedi, M., Fava, M., McGrath, P. J., Weissman, M., Parsey, R., Kurian, B., Adams, P., Carmody, T., Weyandt, S., Shores-Wilson, K., Toups, M., McInnis, M., Oquendo, M. A., Cusin, C., … Pizzagalli, D. A. (2015). A computational analysis of flanker interference in depression. Psychological medicine, 45(11), 2333–2344. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715000276
Li, Q., Xu, H., Ren, Q., He, S., Hu, K., & Li, C.-S. R. (2024). Schizophrenia patients show impaired bottom-up processing and attentional adjustment. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 43(16), 14324–14334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05355-w
Libido Lexical Decision Tasks
Py File
Executable files
CItations and Further Reading
Cacioppo, S. (2022) Wired For Love. Flat Iron Books.
Ortigue, S., Bianchi-Demicheli, F., Hamilton, A. F., & Grafton, S. T. (2007). The neural basis of love as a subliminal prime: an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 19(7), 1218–1230. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.7.1218
Rationale and Discussion
Libido Lexical Decision Task Priming Tasks. These tasks require some explanations. This task came from Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo’s early research (Ortigue et al., 2008), in which she would show two names: one with emotional significance (the name of a partner or spouse) and one control name. She then had the subjects perform a lexical decision task and found that they responded faster to the first condition. I first read about this study in the book Wired For Love (2022), which I highly recommend. I developed files that can easily mimic this task.
I wondered if attractiveness also influenced reaction time for a slightly more generalizable task. Although there are differences in individual opinions on what is attractive and cultural beauty standards, these tasks are probably not too generalizable, which is why I include the code. These all use nearly identical code (the PNG and the tuple of real and fake words), so you can just create them into something unique
I only included one, as they share the same code and differ only in the 5-letter words and the image. I have included the executables to demonstrate this, but as previously stated, these tasks are massive overgeneralizations regarding beauty standards. I chose Sabrina Carpenter and Chris Evans, and for a neutral image, a photo of a building on Lyell Avenue in Rochesrer NY (GO YELLOWJACKETS). Also, be sure to change the tuple, so the words for each condition are different, or else you’ll run into confounds of people responding faster to the words they’ve seen before.
Wisconsin Card Sorting Task
Rationale and Discussion
What is there not to love about the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task? It is elegant in its rules, the design is easy, you can make it with cards, it’s fun to do. This task was made by Berg (1948) and is still used today.
There’s a lot of interesting research on this task, and here are just a few of the studies I love. Goodkind and colleagues (2016) showed that performance improved after cognitive behavioral therapy in individuals with late-life depression. The task can even predict vaccine hesitancy (Pellegrini et al., 2024).
I, however, cannot take credit for any of this code. I relied entirely on an AI. I do not want to misrepresent my coding abilities, and I want to give credit where it is due. If you think any less of me for this, I cannot blame you. However, who cares that the code works and is fun? I created an alternative for individuals with the most common color deficiency (Red-Green), which I vibecoded in part using AI. I made others with a dark background and shapes. Pick your favorite. I gave you options!
Citations and Further Reading
Berg, E.A. (1948). Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404-411. A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39, 15-22.
Choi, J., & Kurtz, M. M. (2009). A comparison of remediation techniques on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia research, 107(1), 76–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2008.09.017
Goodkind, M. S., Gallagher-Thompson, D., Thompson, L. W., Kesler, S. R., Anker, L., Flournoy, J., Berman, M. P., Holland, J. M., & O'Hara, R. M. (2016). The impact of executive function on response to cognitive behavioral therapy in late-life depression. International journal of geriatric psychiatry, 31(4), 334–339. https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.4325
Jenkins, R. L., & Parsons, O. A. (1979). Recovery of cognitive abilities in male alcoholics. Currents in alcoholism, 7, 229–237.
Pellegrini, L., Clarke, A., Fineberg, N. A., & Laws, K. R. (2024). The inflexible mind: A critical factor in understanding and addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Journal of psychiatric research, 179, 360–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.09.028
Bias Related Tasks
Py Files
Executables
Implicit Association Male/Female Fields of Study
More Coming Soon…
Citations and Further Reading
Charlesworth, T. E. S., & Banaji, M. R. (2022). Patterns of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes: IV. Change and Stability From 2007 to 2020. Psychological science, 33(9), 1347–1371. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221084257
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464–1480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464
Thompson P. (1980). Margaret Thatcher: a new illusion. Perception, 9(4), 483–484. https://doi.org/10.1068/p090483
Wong, H. K., Stephen, I. D., & Keeble, D. R. T. (2020). The Own-Race Bias for Face Recognition in a Multiracial Society. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 208. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00208
Rationale and Discussion
Harvard’s Implicit Association Task (Greenwald et al., 1998) is one of the most influential cognitive tasks. It’s a useful tool that shows various implicit attitudes. It’s commonly used for race, gender, and sexuality, but it can be used for literally anything. The purpose of the task is not to demonstrate that everyone is bigoted, but to show that everyone has implicit attitudes and to understand how they manifest in behavior.
Understanding implicit attitudes is important for court hearings. Although the research suggests that implicit attitudes directly correlate with the severity of bigotry. Most people show a “Pro-white” implicit bias, but a vast majority of people will have explicit bias (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2022). This again demonstrates that implicit attitudes are separate from explicit behaviors. It is better to view this as an insight and to ensure you treat people fairly. Again, this is not a “political racism test,” it demonstrates implicit attitudes we all have.
I want to include a political implicit association task, as political discussion is full of in-group and out-group discussions, and I think this leads to some terrible arguments and even worse candidates. I developed a political implicit association task to demonstrate the implicit attitudes people hold when making political decisions. Do not misconstrue anything I write or display here as political. I prefer hearing the arguments and the reasons people hold those views, and forming my own conclusions after hearing them. I am not swayed by political philosophy, as it is merely a heuristic and an in-group/out-group mentality.
I want to re-emphasize that if anything, as this website is viewed as political, I assure you it is not, and I came to these conclusions based on research, which is why I include citations. With forensic psychology, there are no blanket statements, only arguments for specific cases, and you cannot enter into a new case with any previous information and feelings from a previous case.
N-backs
Py files
nback.py
Executables
nback.exe
Rationale and Discussion
The N-back is a cognitive task that measures short-term memory. Individuals are shown a series of stimuli and are asked to identify if they saw the stimulus “n numbers ago”. N is a variable that ranges anywhere from 2 to 9. Haung and colleagues (2025) discuss its various uses.
Citations and Further Research
Huang, S., Chen, C., Mo, Y., Zhao, Y., Zhu, Y., Dong, K., & Xu, T. (2025). Exploring the n-back task: insights, applications, and future directions. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 19, 1721330. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1721330
Iowa Gambling Task
Rationale and Discussion
The Iowa Gambling Task is a measure of risky behavior. This was developed by Dr. Antione Bechara (Bechara et al., 1994) while he was a PhD student under Dr. Antonio Damasio, who is one of my favorite authors. His book, Descartes’ Error (1994), inspired me to establish this website as a resource. The main argument in the book is that emotions and cognitions are inherently intertwined and inseparable. Damasio discusses Phineas Gage in detail as a prime example, and Bechara developed the Iowa Gambling Task to demonstrate riskier behavior in individuals with brain damage localized to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. They found that individuals with brain damage would choose the riskier decks (paying out more but also incurring higher losses) more often than the safer decks.
In terms of psychopathology, Miranda and colleagues (2009) found an interaction between ASPD and AUD in adult men, where the individuals with AUD (with or without comorbid ASPD) performed worse on the IGT. Must and colleagues (2013) also report that individuals with MDD will choose the riskier conditions. Suggesting this task has poor specificity but decent sensitivity for multiple psychopathologies.
I created an executable that randomizes the decks. Usually, the riskier decks are A and B, but now the decks are randomized each time you open the task. This makes it so that people will always have to relearn the task and the rules whenever they perform the task.
Citations and Further Reading
Bechara, A., Damasio A.R., Damasio H., Anderson S.W. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7-15.
Miranda, R., Jr, MacKillop, J., Meyerson, L. A., Justus, A., & Lovallo, W. R. (2009). Influence of antisocial and psychopathic traits on decision-making biases in alcoholics. Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 33(5), 817–825. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00901.x
Must, A., Horvath, S., Nemeth, V. L., & Janka, Z. (2013). The Iowa Gambling Task in depression - what have we learned about sub-optimal decision-making strategies?. Frontiers in psychology, 4, 732. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00732
Search Task
Rationale and Discussion
The Visual Search Task asks participants to find a single T in a sea of Ls. It is used to assess brain damage (Nakajima et al., 2024; Saionz et al., 2021; Walsh & Liu, 2014). I designed a task that can help localize occipital lobe damage by separating the results into different quadrants; damage to Visual area 1 can be partially assessed by dividing the field of view into quadrants.
In terms of psychological assessment, individuals with schizophrenia show a slower reaction time in a visual search task (Gold et al., 2007). Other research shows that one common factor in schizophrenia is deficits in visual processing. One lab that I interned at focused on investigating visual perception and schizophrenia, and they found that individuals with schizophrenia took longer to respond to illusory shapes (Keane et al., 2023).
Buhl and colleagues (2023) demonstrated an effect size of d=.06 between children with MDD and children with low risk of depression in an emotionally salient search task. This demonstrates a similar negative attention bias that Beevers and colleagues (2019) suggested.
Citations and Further Reading
Beevers, C. G., Mullarkey, M. C., Dainer-Best, J., Stewart, R. A., Labrada, J., Allen, J. J. B., McGeary, J. E., & Shumake, J. (2019). Association between negative cognitive bias and depression: A symptom-level approach. Journal of abnormal psychology, 128(3), 212–227. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000405
Buhl, C., Sfärlea, A., Loechner, J., Starman-Wöhrle, K., Salemink, E., Schulte-Körne, G., & Platt, B. (2023). Biased Maintenance of Attention on Sad Faces in Clinically Depressed Youth: An Eye-Tracking Study. Child psychiatry and human development, 54(1), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01229-z
Gold, J. M., Fuller, R. L., Robinson, B. M., Braun, E. L., & Luck, S. J. (2007). Impaired top-down control of visual search in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia research, 94(1-3), 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2007.04.023
Nakajima, Y., Takahashi, N., Kawabata, K., Fujita, K., Shiomi, K., Sato, M., Omata, N., & Kobayashi, Y. (2024). Characteristics of Visual Cognition in Patients with Anoxic Encephalopathy: An Eye-tracking Study. Progress in rehabilitation medicine, 9, 20240024. https://doi.org/10.2490/prm.20240024
Saionz, E. L., Feldon, S. E., & Huxlin, K. R. (2021). Rehabilitation of cortically induced visual field loss. Current opinion in neurology, 34(1), 67–74. https://doi.org/10.1097/WCO.0000000000000884
Walsh, D. V., & Liu, L. (2014). Adaptation to a simulated central scotoma during visual search training. Vision research, 96, 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2014.01.005
Go/No Go
Rationale and Discussion
The Go/No Go Task is similar to the Stroop task, as both measure inhibition and impulsivity without the interference effect seen in the Stroop task. In this task, individuals are shown symbols and are told to respond to the specific go stimuli. Participants can press a myriad of buttons to respond to the stimulus. When it is a stop stimulus, they are told not to press anything.
The Go/No Go Task has been shown to demonstrate differences across psychopathologies such as ADHD (Wallace et al., 2023), Antisocial Personality Disorder (Verona et al., 2012), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Chen et al., 2025), in both behavioral results and neuroimaging. Wallace and colleagues also found that screen time mediated symptoms of ADHD through impulsivity and working memory using the Go/NoGo Task.
There are many paradigms that can be implemented using the Go/NoGo Task. I created one where people have to focus on either the color or the words.
Citations and Further Reading
Chen, C. A., Lin, P. T., Hsu, M. Y., Lee, C. Y., Chen, I. M., Lin, Y. T., Huang, Y. J., Chen, P. H., Chen, J. J., Lin, G. H., & Huang, Y. J. (2025). Hypoactivity of the Prefrontal Cortex During Go/No-Go Task in Patients With Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Depression and anxiety, 2025, 9040115. https://doi.org/10.1155/da/9040115
Verona, E., Sprague, J., & Sadeh, N. (2012). Inhibitory control and negative emotional processing in psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. Journal of abnormal psychology, 121(2), 498–510. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025308
Wallace, J., Boers, E., Ouellet, J., Afzali, M. H., & Conrod, P. (2023). Screen time, impulsivity, neuropsychological functions and their relationship to growth in adolescent attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Scientific reports, 13(1), 18108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44105-7
Dot Probe Tasks
Rationale and Discussion
The Dot Probe Task is a method of measuring attention. In line with Broadbent (1958) and other attention researchers (Posner, 1980; Treisman & Gelade, 1980), attention is not about processing everything in our view, but about focusing on what is relevant to our goals and thought processes. In this task, people are shown two things between a fixation cross for a couple of hundred milliseconds. Then the cross and the words/image disappear, and a dot appears. Participants will have to press the corresponding button to select which side the dot appeared on.
The words/images can be anything. I created some where there are words with neutral and negative connotations, drug conditions, and trauma-related words, as well as image conditions with attractive celebrities/models and a neutral and scary face conditions.
Research has shown that depression (Trapp et al., 2018), Substance use disorders (Robbins & Ehrman, 2004), PTSD (Veerapa et al., 2023; Kaiser et al., 2020), and borderline personality disorder (Vestergaard et al., 2020; Kaiser et al., 2020). What is fascinating is that Vestergaard and colleagues (2020) and Kaiser and colleagues (2020) found similar results to those of Wrege and colleagues (2021) with the FERT. Suggesting that there are multiple ways of measuring emotional processing and that worse emotional processing in individuals with BPD is prevalent.
Veerapa and colleagues (2023) did not find any reaction time differences but did find eye-gaze differences towards negative stimuli. Eye Gaze research is an incredible new method for measuring attentional bias.
Citations and Further Reading
Kaiser, D., Jacob, G. A., van Zutphen, L., Siep, N., Sprenger, A., Tuschen-Caffier, B., Senft, A., Arntz, A., & Domes, G. (2020). Patients with borderline personality disorder and comorbid PTSD show biased attention for threat in the facial dot-probe task. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 67, 101437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2018.11.005
Robbins, S. J., & Ehrman, R. N. (2004). The role of attentional bias in substance abuse. Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews, 3(4), 243–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582305275423
Trapp, W., Kalzendorf, C., Baum, C., Hajak, G., & Lautenbacher, S. (2018). Attentional biases in patients suffering from unipolar depression: results of a dot probe task investigation. Psychiatry research, 261, 325–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.01.005
Veerapa, E., Grandgenevre, P., Vaiva, G., Duhem, S., Fayoumi, M. E., Vinnac, B., Szaffarczyk, S., Wathelet, M., Fovet, T., & D'Hondt, F. (2023). Attentional bias toward negative stimuli in PTSD: an eye-tracking study. Psychological medicine, 53(12), 5809–5817. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722003063
Vestergaard, M., Kongerslev, M. T., Thomsen, M. S., Mathiesen, B. B., Harmer, C. J., Simonsen, E., & Miskowiak, K. W. (2020). Women With Borderline Personality Disorder Show Reduced Identification of Emotional Facial Expressions and a Heightened Negativity Bias. Journal of personality disorders, 34(5), 677–698. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi_2019_33_409
About The Page Designer, Ty DiPonzio
Ty DiPonzio is a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling Student at the University of Rochester. His career aspirations are to work as a Forensic Psychologist, Psychotherapist, and Adjunct Faculty Professor. His research interests are centered on Cognitive Performance across psychological tasks in different psychopathologies and on how these tasks can be used to measure and assess diagnoses, track improvement, predict treatment response, and predict future behavior relevant to Forensic Psychology examinations.
Ty graduated Cum Laude from The State University of New York at Geneseo. He joined both Psi Chi and Nu Rho Psi, honor societies for Psychology and Neuroscience, respectively. Because of his contributions to the Geneseo Psychology Department through events and charity drives, he was awarded the Outstanding Student Leadership Award in his senior year.
Ty is currently a Research Assistant for the Deep Structure in New York Lab (DeStiNY Lab). Here, he has worked on literature reviews, provided peer-review feedback, designed and developed projects, and is currently collecting data for a research project for his Master's Thesis.
After Ty earns his Master’s Degree, he plans to pursue a PhD in Counseling Psychology, Clinical Psychology, or Behavioral Neuroscience to provide expert testimony as a Board Certified Forensic Psychologist and to practice as a psychotherapist. Ty hopes to continue research in the merit of cognitive tasks in psychotherapy, particularly in the domains of memory, executive function, inhibition, and impulsivity, and how they relate to personality disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance use disorders. Ty also wants to investigate whether these tasks meet the Daubert Standard in US courts, so they can help bolster civil rights for the accused and provide in-depth psychological evidence for parole and similar evaluations.
Ty is an avid reader with his favorite authors being Dr. Oliver Sacks, Dr. David Nutt, Dr. David Eagleman, Antonio Damasio, Kurt Vonnegut, Will Eisner, George Orwell, Alan Moore, and Aldous Huxley.
To learn more about Ty, you can click here to view his LinkedIn.