Terms & Conditions

What's this research for?

We want to know how simple cognitive traits vary across large groups of people. We also want to find people with interesting groups of traits who might participate in further research. Above all, we want you to enjoy the games, and to find out a bit more about what psychologists and neuroscientists do to investigate the workings of the human brain.

What will I do?

You will provide some basic demographic information and confirm some settings in order to sign up. After that, you're free to play the games, and we'll get useful data each time you play.

How long will it take?

The sign-up process should take only a few minutes. Each game takes about five minutes to play.

What data will I be sharing?

Your responses in the games and surveys and the basic details you give us in the app will be sent to us. Some anonymous passive data from device sensors, for example how often you use your device, will also be sent to us if you allow it. You can stop sending passive data at any point if you wish in Settings.

What will you do with this data?

We'll use it for our academic research, and possibly to create summary data that app users can see. We'll publish the results of our research in scientific journals. The papers will be available to read online. Go to our website https://www.rutledgelab.org/ to see details of recent studies.

Is it anonymous?

Yes. The data collected by the app is anonymous and furthermore we won't use your information sent to us at any point to try to identify you. The app won't ask for your name or for any other personal details, and we don't need your phone number to send notifications to your device. We will never sell your data to any third party. We may make your anonymous data available for further research by other parties such as academic researchers at other institutions.

Is it secure?

No personal information that could identify you is sent to us by the app. Your data will be stored securely on our servers.

Are there any benefits or risks?

There is no direct benefit to you in participating. However, you will be helping us make scientific discoveries about how the human brain works. It is possible but unlikely that the tasks may cause you discomfort or fatigue. There is a slight chance you may feel frustrated or uncomfortable if a task is difficult, and you are free to discontinue your participation at any point.

Do I have to take part in the research to use the app?

If you don't want to take part in the research, go to Settings and you can turn off your participation in research. You will still be able to play games in the app. Your use of the app will be unaffected. If you change your mind, you can go to Settings and start participating in research again.

Is it easy to get out of?

Taking part is completely voluntary. You can change your preference in the Settings menu at any time and without giving a reason. You can decide not to send us data from the games or passive data from your device's sensors. You can withdraw completely from the experiment at any time in the Settings and this will delete all of your data from our server. Or you can just delete this app from your device at any time (although once you've done this, you won't be able to delete your data from the server). We won't be able to remove your data from analyses that have already been completed or from data that has already been made available to other researchers.

How much data does it use? Not very much. Playing the games uses less data that sending a typical email.