Abstract
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study is an unprecedented longitudinal neuroimaging sample that tracks the brain development of over 10,000 9-10 year olds through adolescence. At the core of this study are the three tasks that are completed repeatedly within the fMRI scanner, one of which is the stop-signal task. In analyzing the available stopping experimental code and data, we identified a set of design issues that we believe significantly limit its value. These issues include but are not limited to: variable stimulus durations that violate basic assumptions of dominant stopping models, trials in which stimuli are incorrectly not presented, and faulty stop-signal delays. We present eight issues, show their effect on the existing ABCD data, suggest prospective solutions to the study organizers including task changes for future data collection, and suggest retrospective solutions for data users who wish to make the most of the existing data.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
A coding error was fixed that inflated stop-failure RT in the Evidence for Issue 1 in ABCD Data section
