It was 40 years ago today: Reflections “On the ability to inhibit simple and choice reaction time responses: A model and a method” by Logan et al. (1984).

The stop signal task requires people to inhibit an ongoing action when a signal tells them to stop. It measures the act of control people engage to inhibit actions, change goals, adjust to perturbations, and correct errors. It has become a gold standard measure of inhibitory control. This article provides a commentary on the article we published in 1984 that provided a model and a method for measuring the act of control engaged in the stop signal task. The commentary describes the genesis of the theory relating the task to cognitive control, summarizes the model and the method, and suggests reasons why the 1984 article had an impact that extends beyond experimental psychology to cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, clinical science, and developmental psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).