Executive Function
Self-Control Sequence Task
Also called: sequential task paradigm, sequential-task paradigm, e-crossing task, letter e task, crossing out e task, depletion manipulation
Measure performance on a self-control task after a hard or an easy first task, the sequential-task paradigm: participants cross out letters under a hard rule or an easy one, then answer color words or solve anagrams.
15-20 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
- 56
- Evidence grade
- D
- Registered clinical studies
- 0
What it measures
Measures performance on a self-control task after a first task that is hard or easy, the sequential-task paradigm. Participants cross out the letter e on two timed pages of English text, on the second page under a new rule (skip an e beside a vowel) or the same one, rate the effort, then answer color words by their ink or solve anagrams they may skip. Scores the second task and the persistence on it, compared between the hard and easy first task.
Constructs
- Self-control
- Response inhibition
- Persistence
- Perceived effort
Research uses
- Social and personality psychology studies of the sequential-task paradigm
- Many-laboratory and replication studies of performance after effort
- Research on effort, fatigue and motivation, at the group level
How the paradigm works
The Self-Control Sequence Task runs the sequential-task paradigm: a first task that does or does not ask people to override a habit, then a second task that needs self-control, compared between the two first tasks. It follows the letter task of Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven and Tice (1998) in the two-page form of Vohs and colleagues (2021). On the first page participants click every letter e in lines of English text to cross it out, which builds a habit; on the second page they keep the same rule (easy, the control) or follow a new one, cross out an e only when no vowel is right before or after it (hard). Each page runs for a set time, 5 minutes by default (2 to 8), and new text comes whenever the participant asks for it. Our code writes the text from a fixed list of dry statistics words, in English in every session language, as the replication's text was in every laboratory.
More about the paradigm
After the letter task, participants rate how much effort it took, how tired they feel, and how difficult and how frustrating it was, each from 1 to 7, the checks of the registered replication of Hagger and colleagues (2016). The second task is practiced at the start, as in that replication, and run after the ratings: 120 color words, each in another color's ink and answered by the ink on the Stroop test's keys, after a 500 ms cross and within 2.5 seconds (the standard), or 12 solvable five-letter anagrams from the Anagram Task, each until it is solved or skipped, up to 60 seconds. A study chooses the hard version, the easy version, or a draw for each session from its seed.
The main score is the mean time of right answers on the second task. The task also reports the second task's share right and the spread of its times, and with anagrams the number solved and skipped and the persistence, the mean seconds spent on an anagram not solved before moving on; the share of e's on the second page crossed or passed as its rule says, with rule errors, missed e's and other letters crossed; and the four ratings. Whether a hard first task changes performance on a second one is debated: early studies reported that it did (Baumeister and colleagues, 1998), large preregistered replications found effects near zero (d = 0.04 across 23 laboratories in Hagger and colleagues, 2016, and d = 0.06 across 36 in Vohs and colleagues, 2021), and this task makes no claim either way. Scores support research and do not diagnose.
Scores
- Second Task Timems
- Mean time of the right answers on the second task: the color words answered right, at or after 100 ms, or the anagrams solved.
- Compared between the hard and easy first task
- Second Task Accuracy%
- Share of the second task done right: color words answered with the right key, or anagrams solved.
- Compared between the hard and easy first task
- Second Task Time Spreadms
- Standard deviation of the right-answer times on the second task.
- Informational
- Second Task Time-Outscount
- Color words with no key within 2.5 seconds, or anagrams left until their 60 seconds ran out.
- Quality check
- Anagrams Solvedcount
- With anagrams as the second task: the anagrams solved, of 12; empty with color words.
- Compared between the hard and easy first task
- Anagrams Skippedcount
- With anagrams as the second task: the anagrams the participant moved on from with Skip; empty with color words.
- Informational
- Persistenceseconds
- With anagrams as the second task: mean seconds spent on an anagram not solved, before Skip or the time limit; empty when every anagram was solved or with color words.
- Compared between the hard and easy first task
- Time on Second Taskseconds
- Seconds the second task took: each word's cross and answer time, or each anagram's time on screen.
- Informational
- Hard First Task0/1
- 1 for the hard rule on the second page of letters, 0 for the easy rule, as set or drawn for the session.
- Informational
- Letter Rule Accuracy%
- Share of the e's on the second page crossed out or passed as its rule says, counting the text up to the last letter crossed on the sheet the time ended.
- Quality check of the first task
- First Page Accuracy%
- Share of the e's on the first page crossed out, read the same way.
- Informational
- E's Checkedcount
- E's reached on the second page, crossed out or passed.
- Informational
- Rule Errorscount
- E's on the second page crossed out although a vowel was right beside them; always 0 under the easy rule.
- Informational
- Missed E'scount
- E's on the second page that the rule says to cross out and were left.
- Informational
- Other Letters Crossedcount
- Letters other than e crossed out on the second page.
- Quality check
- Sheets Finishedcount
- Sheets of text on the second page the participant finished and moved on from.
- Informational
- Effortscore
- How much effort the letter task took, from 1 (very little) to 7 (a great deal).
- Manipulation check
- Fatiguescore
- How tired the participant felt after the letter task, from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).
- Manipulation check
- Difficultyscore
- How difficult the letter task was, from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).
- Manipulation check
- Frustrationscore
- How frustrating the letter task was, from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).
- Manipulation check
- Anticipationscount
- Color words answered under 100 ms.
- Quality check
- Session in Another Language0/1
- 1 when the session ran in a language other than English; the letter text and the anagrams are English in every session.
- 1 is flagged for review.
Use and evidence
56 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 61% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 406 of 670 test families in our census. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 12 |
| 2024 | 5 |
| 2023 | 11 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2021 | 20 |
| 2020 | 20 |
| 2019 | 22 |
| 2018 | 33 |
| 2017 | 37 |
| 2016 | 31 |
| 2015 | 21 |
| 2014 | 21 |
| 2013 | 12 |
| 2012 | 7 |
| 2011 | 2 |
| 2010 | 6 |
| 2009 | 2 |
| 2008 | 2 |
| 2007 | 1 |
| 2006 | 1 |
| 2005 | 0 |
| 2004 | 1 |
| 2003 | 2 |
| 2002 | 0 |
| 2001 | 0 |
| 2000 | 0 |
Use grade D
30 to 99 papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade D
Little published measurement evidence found.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 0
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 16
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 0
Measured on ConductCognition
Pooled across the studies that feed our platform norms, by device group. A figure needs 50 or more people.
No pooled figure yet.
Note on the counts: counts papers that name the paradigm; many more mention ego depletion without running it.
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 0.48.0, counted 12 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Task design
The trial sequence as the test runs in ConductCognition.
- Letter task
- Two pages of English text that our code writes from dry statistics words. Page 1: click every e to cross it out. Page 2: the same rule (easy, the control) or a new one, cross out an e only when no vowel is right before or after it (hard, standard).
- Timing
- Each page runs for 5 minutes (2 to 8); new text comes when the participant asks for it, up to 30 sheets a page.
- Ratings
- Effort, fatigue, difficulty and frustration, each from 1 to 7, after the letter task.
- Second task
- 120 color words (standard), each in another color's ink and answered by the ink, after a 500 ms cross and within 2,500 ms; or 12 solvable anagrams, 4 from each band of the Anagram Task, each until solved or skipped, up to 60 seconds.
- Practice
- 12 color words with feedback for 800 ms, or 2 anagrams shown with their answers, at the start, before the letter task.
- Versions
- Hard or easy first task set by the study, or drawn for each session from its seed.
- Scoring
- The second task's time of right answers, share right and spread of times; anagrams solved and skipped and the seconds spent on unsolved ones; the share of e's handled by the page's rule; and the four ratings.
Baumeister and colleagues gave one typed page of statistics text and a pen, and Vohs and colleagues timed two printed pages at 7 and 8 minutes. This version runs in the browser: letters are crossed out with a click, the text is written by our code, and the second task is color words or anagrams in place of their figure tracing, with no unsolvable item.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: scs_word, four-key color words answered within 2.5 s, or scs_anagram, solvable anagrams with no chance level. Color words below chance invalidate and one key on nearly every word is checked. Missed responses and responses under 100 ms follow the timed-test rule. Fewer than 80% of the second page's e's crossed or skipped by its rule, or fewer than 80% of the color words right, is flagged, as is a second page with no e checked. A session in another language than the English text is flagged for review.
Why these rules
Each color word has four keys, so a guess is right one time in four. 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. The registered replication of Hagger and colleagues (2016) left out participants under 80% correct on either task, because a first task not done by its rule cannot test what the rule asks; here those sessions stay valid and are flagged for the study to decide. The letter text and the anagrams are English in every session, as the replication's text was; a session run in another language shows them to a participant who may not read English fluently, so it is flagged for review.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| First task | Hard rule (standard) | Hard rule (standard), Easy rule (control), Random for each session |
| Second task | Color words (standard) | Color words (standard), Anagrams |
| Minutes on each page of letters | 5 | 2 to 8 |
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
- Instructions and screens: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. Words and sentences: English.
- 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 Self-Control Sequence Task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven and Tice, 1998), with the standard settings (first task: Hard rule; second task: Color words; minutes on each page of letters: 5). The main score was second task time (mean time of the right answers on the second task: the color words answered right, at or after 100 ms, or the anagrams solved).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
- Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1252-1265. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252The letter task and its harder rule (Experiment 4), and solvable anagrams after a first task (Experiment 3).
- Hagger, M. S., Chatzisarantis, N. L. D., Alberts, H., Anggono, C. O., Batailler, C., Birt, A. R., et al. (2016). A multilab preregistered replication of the ego-depletion effect. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(4), 546-573. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616652873Practice of both tasks first, the four ratings after the first task, and the 80% accuracy checks.
- Vohs, K. D., Schmeichel, B. J., Lohmann, S., Gronau, Q. F., Finley, A. J., Ainsworth, S. E., et al. (2021). A multisite preregistered paradigmatic test of the ego-depletion effect. Psychological Science, 32(10), 1566-1581. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621989733The two pages, every e and then the same or the new rule, with English text in every laboratory.
Source papers
- Baumeister RF, Bratslavsky E, Muraven M, Tice DM (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5):1252-1265.Paradigm source, Adults
- No normative data for this task.Paradigm source, N/A
Questions
How long does the Self-Control Sequence Task take?
About 15 to 20 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?
Second Task Time, Second Task Accuracy, Second Task Time Spread, Second Task Time-Outs, Anagrams Solved, Anagrams Skipped, Persistence, Time on Second Task, Hard First Task, Letter Rule Accuracy, First Page Accuracy, E's Checked, Rule Errors, Missed E's, Other Letters Crossed, Sheets Finished, Effort, Fatigue, Difficulty, Frustration, Anticipations and Session in Another Language. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Self-Control Sequence Task used in research?
56 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, down 61% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 406 of 670 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade D). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.48.0, counted 12 November 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Self-Control Sequence 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 D in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
First task (Hard rule (standard), Easy rule (control), Random for each session), second task (Color words (standard), Anagrams) and minutes on each page of letters (2 to 8). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
The instructions and screens are in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. The words and sentences stay in English, so sessions in other languages are flagged for review. 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.
Every test: the full test list.
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