The HCP Development study uses three customized PsychoPy task scripts in its functional MRI protocol. These scripts are now available for download and use by other researchers.
The GUESSING task aims to elicit neural activity that indexes three different aspects of reward reactivity:
Participants view a “?” and press a button indicating a binary guess on who is “hiding behind” the question mark (baby or adult). Participants then receive feedback indicating whether they were correct or incorrect. Correct feedback is accompanied by monetary wins and incorrect feedback is accompanied by monetary losses. A cue preceding each group of four trials indicates whether high (+$1.00, -$0.50) or low (+$0.20, -$0.10) stakes are paid out on the next set of trials.
In addition, the Guessing task has a conceptual link with the CARIT (Go/NoGo) task which is administered immediately after it in HCP-D. For a full description, see the documentation in the PsychoPy package download.
Also see:
Delgado, M. R., L. E. Nystrom, C. Fissell, D. C. Noll, and J. A. Fiez. 2000. “Tracking the Hemodynamic Responses to Reward and Punishment in the Striatum.” Journal of Neurophysiology 84 (6): 3072–77. PMID: 11110834
The CARIT task (Conditioned Approach Response Inhibition Task, a Go/NoGo task with a reward history component, Winter and Sheridan 2014) has as its core element a classic Go/NoGo task that allows mapping of differential neural activity when response inhibition demands are high (NoGo trials) compared to freely responding with a motor action (Go trials). The NoGo > Go contrast identifies brain regions important for motor response inhibition.
In addition, the NoGo targets have a conceptual link with the previous Guessing task to allow measurement of reward-control interactions. For details on this element of the design, see the documentation in the PsychoPy package download.
Also, note that the CARIT task for HCP-D is identical to the CARIT task for HCP Aging. See the HCP-A Task Protocols page for more details.
Also see:
Winter, Warren, and Margaret Sheridan. 2014. “Previous Reward Decreases Errors of Commission on Later ‘No-Go’ Trials in Children 4 to 12 Years of Age: Evidence for a Context Monitoring Account.” Developmental Science 17 (5): 797–807. doi: 10.1111/desc.12168
During the EMOTION task, participants view emotional faces and shapes and respond by indicating which of two samples (bottom) matches the target (top). This task is a block design. It is intended to engage emotion and face processing networks.
For more information on the original task this was derived from, see:
Hariri, Ahmad R., Alessandro Tessitore, Venkata S. Mattay, Francesco Fera, and Daniel R. Weinberger. 2002. “The Amygdala Response to Emotional Stimuli: A Comparison of Faces and Scenes.” NeuroImage 17 (1): 317–23. doi: 10.1006/nimg.2002.1179
Download Task Protocols and documentation used in the HCP Development study: