Executive Function
Response Binding Task
Also called: event file task, event-file paradigm, partial repetition paradigm, stimulus-response binding task, S1R1-S2R2 task, Hommel task
Measure how a response stays bound to the letter it answered: participants press a cued key at a first letter, then answer a second letter whose shape, color, position and key repeat or change.
10-12 minTimed: desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Try it here first, with no account.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 200
- Evidence grade
- C
- Registered clinical studies
- 0
What it measures
Measures how a key press and the letter it answered stay bound together for a moment. In each trial participants press the key that arrows show as soon as a first letter appears, then press F or J for the shape of a second letter. Repeating only the shape or only the response slows the second press.
Constructs
- Stimulus-response binding
- Action control
- Episodic retrieval
Research uses
- Action control research
- Aging and development research
- Within-study group comparison
How the paradigm works
The Response Binding Task measures how the features of an object and the response made to it are bound together for a moment. In the method of Hommel (1998), each trial has two parts. Arrows cue a left or right key press, made as soon as a first letter appears, whatever the letter; a second later a second letter appears and is answered by its shape. The letters' shape, color and position, and the response, each repeat or change from the first part to the second. Answers are slower when only some of these repeat, for example the same shape with the other key, than when all repeat or all change. These partial-repetition costs suggest that a stimulus and the response made to it are stored together, in what Hommel called an event file, and that repeating any one feature brings the whole episode back (Hommel, 1998, 2004).
More about the paradigm
Three boxes are stacked on a dark panel. Arrows in the middle box show the first key, F for left or J for right, for 1,000 ms; 500 ms later a red or blue O or X appears in the top or bottom box for 400 ms, and participants press the cued key at once. One second after the first letter appears, a second letter appears, and participants press F or J for its shape within 2,000 ms, with the two keys and their shapes shown under the boxes. Which shape goes with which key is drawn for each session. A first press that is wrong, comes before the letter or comes later than 800 ms ends the trial with a message. The standard session has 128 trials after 16 practice trials with feedback: every combination of the second letter's shape, color and box with a repeat or a change of shape, color, box and response, in a seeded order, with a break halfway.
The primary score is the partial-repetition cost of shape and response: the mean correct response time to the second letter when only its shape or only the response repeats, minus the mean when both repeat or both change. Positive values mean the shape and the response were bound. The task gives the same cost for the box and for the color with the response, for each pair of letter features, and in errors. Means use correct answers at or after 100 ms, without those more than 3 SD from their cell's mean; responses under 100 ms count as anticipations. In the study of Hommel, Kray and Lindenberger (2011), the binding of shape and response was the strongest, and it was larger in older than in young adults; Colzato and colleagues (2006) found it smaller in people with higher fluid intelligence.
Scores
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Responsems
- Mean correct response time to the second letter when only its shape or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the shape and the response were bound
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Box and Responsems
- Mean correct response time when only the letter's box or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the box and the response were bound
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Color and Responsems
- Mean correct response time when only the letter's color or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the color and the response were bound
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Boxms
- Mean correct response time when only the letter's shape or only its box repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the shape and the box were bound
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Colorms
- Mean correct response time when only the letter's shape or only its color repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the shape and the color were bound
- Partial-Repetition Cost, Color and Boxms
- Mean correct response time when only the letter's color or only its box repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed.
- Positive values mean the color and the box were bound
- Error Cost, Shape and Response%
- Share of errors when only the shape or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed, leaving out responses under 100 ms.
- Positive values mean more errors after a partial repetition
- Error Cost, Box and Response%
- Share of errors when only the box or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed, leaving out responses under 100 ms.
- Positive values mean more errors after a partial repetition
- Error Cost, Color and Response%
- Share of errors when only the color or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed, leaving out responses under 100 ms.
- Positive values mean more errors after a partial repetition
- Response Time, Shape and Response Repeatedms
- Mean correct response time when the second letter had the first letter's shape and needed the first press's key, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Response Time, Shape Repeated Onlyms
- Mean correct response time when the shape repeated and the key changed, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Response Time, Response Repeated Onlyms
- Mean correct response time when the key repeated and the shape changed, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Response Time, Shape and Response Changedms
- Mean correct response time when both the shape and the key changed, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Mean Response Timems
- Mean correct response time to the second letters, after trimming.
- Lower is faster
- Accuracy%
- Share of second letters answered with the key for their shape.
- Higher is better
- Trials in the Smallest Celltrials
- Correct trials at or after 100 ms in the smallest of the four cells of shape and response repetition.
- Fewer than 8 is flagged
- First Press Timems
- Mean time from the first letter's onset to a correct first press.
- Lower is faster
- First Press Failurescount
- Trials whose first press was the wrong key, came before the first letter or came later than 800 ms; these trials end before the second letter.
- More than a quarter of the trials is flagged
- Anticipationscount
- Second presses under 100 ms from the second letter's onset.
- Lower is better
- Missed Responsescount
- Trials with no second press within 2,000 ms.
- Lower is better
- Completed Trialstrials
- Trials that reached the second letter.
- Informational
- Test Trialstrials
- Test trials in the scored run, with or without a second letter.
- Informational
Use and evidence
200 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, up 68% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 140 of 495 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 53 |
| 2024 | 41 |
| 2023 | 33 |
| 2022 | 39 |
| 2021 | 34 |
| 2020 | 29 |
| 2019 | 23 |
| 2018 | 22 |
| 2017 | 25 |
| 2016 | 20 |
| 2015 | 17 |
| 2014 | 17 |
| 2013 | 21 |
| 2012 | 21 |
| 2011 | 24 |
| 2010 | 8 |
| 2009 | 10 |
| 2008 | 6 |
| 2007 | 2 |
| 2006 | 6 |
| 2005 | 3 |
| 2004 | 5 |
| 2003 | 2 |
| 2002 | 2 |
| 2001 | 3 |
| 2000 | 5 |
Use grade C
100 to 299 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade C
At least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 0
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 35
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 0
Note on the counts: includes distractor-response binding studies.
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 3 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Display
- Three square outlines stacked on a dark panel, each 72 px across and 16 px apart. Each letter is a red or blue O or X in the top or bottom box; arrows in the middle box cue the first press.
- First part
- Arrows for 1,000 ms, empty boxes for 500 ms, then the first letter for 400 ms. Press the key the arrows show, F for left or J for right, within 800 ms of the letter, whatever the letter is.
- Second part
- The second letter 1,000 ms after the first letter's onset, until F or J or 2,000 ms: the key for its shape, with the two keys and their shapes shown under the boxes. Which shape goes with which key is drawn for each session.
- Between trials
- 1,000 ms of empty boxes.
- Trial mix
- 128 trials (standard): every combination of the second letter's shape, color and box with a repeat or a change of shape, color, box and response, in a seeded order, with a break halfway. 64 trials take a balanced half, in which every combination of the four repeats and changes comes four times; 192 and 256 add halves in turn.
- First press
- A wrong first key, a press before the first letter or one later than 800 ms ends the trial with a message for 1,500 ms.
- Practice
- 16 trials with feedback for 800 ms. In the test, only a wrong, slow or early second press gets a message, for 1,000 ms.
- Score
- Partial-repetition cost of shape and response: mean correct response time when only the shape or only the response repeats, minus when both repeat or both change.
Hommel and Frings (2020) showed the arrows for 1,500 ms and empty boxes for 1,000 ms before the first letter, with 2,000 ms between trials; this version uses 1,000, 500 and 1,000 ms to keep the session near 11 minutes, and keeps their 400 ms first letter and 1 second from one letter to the next. The first press counts within 800 ms, between the 600 ms of Hommel and Frings (2020) and the 1 second of Hommel, Kray and Lindenberger (2011). The sources repeated a trial with a wrong or missing response later in the block; this version ends it and goes on, so a session can score fewer trials than it plans. Colzato and colleagues (2006) colored their stimuli red or green; here the letters are red or blue, which stay apart for people with red-green color blindness. The costs fade as the time between the two parts grows (Hommel and Frings, 2020), so compare people tested with the same timing.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: response_binding_test from the scored run, the second press of each trial whose first press followed the arrows: F or J for the second letter's shape (chance 50%, each key on half the trials) within 2,000 ms, correctness from the recorded key. Below chance invalidates and not above chance is flagged. One key on 90% of answers invalidates when accuracy is not above chance. Fewer than 8 correct trials in any of the four cells of shape and response repetition is flagged and withholds the percentile. A first press that was wrong, late or early on more than a quarter of the trials is flagged. Missed responses and responses under 100 ms follow the timed-test rule.
Why these rules
Accuracy significantly below chance (one-sided exact test, p < .05) cannot come from guessing; it means the response mapping was reversed or the task was not followed (Slick, Sherman and Iverson 1999 treat below-chance forced-choice performance as definite response bias). Chance-level accuracy can be a real result in impaired participants, so it is only flagged. One option on at least 90% of answered trials, when the correct options are balanced and accuracy is not above chance, means the answers did not depend on the items (the task counterpart of long-string responding in surveys; Curran 2016). Missed responses and responses under 100 ms keep the platform's timed-test rule: more than max(3, 25%) missed responses or more than max(2, 20%) responses under 100 ms invalidate, and any is flagged. A response under 100 ms cannot be a reaction to the stimulus. A partial-repetition cost compares four cell means, so it needs enough correct trials in each; the limit of 8, half of each cell in the shortest session, is a ConductScience choice. A trial whose first press does not follow the arrows ends before the second letter, as in Hommel and Frings (2020), so many such trials leave fewer to score and suggest the arrows were not followed; the limit of a quarter is a ConductScience choice.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Test trials | 128 (standard) | 64, 128 (standard), 192, 256 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Response Binding Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Hommel, 1998), with the standard settings (test trials: 128). The main score was partial-repetition Cost, shape and response (mean correct response time to the second letter when only its shape or only the response repeated, minus when both repeated or both changed).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Hommel, B. (1998). Event files: Evidence for automatic integration of stimulus-response episodes. Visual Cognition, 5(1-2), 183-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/713756773The paradigm: a cued first response, then a choice response to a second stimulus whose shape, color and position, and response, repeat or change.
- Hommel, B., Kray, J., & Lindenberger, U. (2011). Feature integration across the lifespan: Stickier stimulus-response bindings in children and older adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 268. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00268O and X letters in the top or bottom box, rows of three arrowheads as the cue and the partial-repetition cost; the cost of shape and response was larger in older than in young adults.
- Hommel, B., & Frings, C. (2020). The disintegration of event files over time: Decay or interference? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27(4), 751-757. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01738-3The trial timing, and the costs fading over 1 to 5 seconds.
- Colzato, L. S., van Wouwe, N. C., Lavender, T. J., & Hommel, B. (2006). Intelligence and cognitive flexibility: Fluid intelligence correlates with feature "unbinding" across perception and action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(6), 1043-1048. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213923Shape, color and position repeating or changing in one design; the cost of shape and response was smaller with higher fluid intelligence.
- Hommel, B. (2004). Event files: Feature binding in and across perception and action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(11), 494-500. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.08.007A review of event files.
- Frings, C., Hommel, B., Koch, I., Rothermund, K., Dignath, D., Giesen, C., Kiesel, A., Kunde, W., Mayr, S., Moeller, B., Möller, M., Pfister, R., & Philipp, A. (2020). Binding and retrieval in action control (BRAC). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(5), 375-387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.02.004A framework that separates binding from retrieval across action control tasks.
Source papers
- Hommel B, Kray J, Lindenberger U (2011). Feature integration across the lifespan: Stickier stimulus-response bindings in children and older adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 2:268.N 65, Children 9 to 10, adults 20 to 31 and 64 to 76
Questions
How long does the Response Binding Task take?
About 10 to 12 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Timed test: participants need a desktop or laptop with a mouse or trackpad. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Response, Partial-Repetition Cost, Box and Response, Partial-Repetition Cost, Color and Response, Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Box, Partial-Repetition Cost, Shape and Color, Partial-Repetition Cost, Color and Box, Error Cost, Shape and Response, Error Cost, Box and Response, Error Cost, Color and Response, Response Time, Shape and Response Repeated, Response Time, Shape Repeated Only, Response Time, Response Repeated Only, Response Time, Shape and Response Changed, Mean Response Time, Accuracy, Trials in the Smallest Cell, First Press Time, First Press Failures, Anticipations, Missed Responses, Completed Trials and Test Trials. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Response Binding Task used in research?
200 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, up 68% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 140 of 495 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade C). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.22.0, counted 3 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Response Binding Task have?
In the published research, 0 papers report its test-retest reliability and 0 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade C in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Test trials (64, 128 (standard), 192, 256). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
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