Complex Card Matching Task

Task used to investigate the Exploration-Exploitation tradeoff. While it was inspired by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, key aspects were changed to make the CCMT more difficult as to tap into higher-order cognitive processes. 

In this task, participants classify cards based on unspecified rules, learning through trial and error with correct-incorrect feedback. It assesses cognitive flexibility by requiring them to alternate between exploration (testing new rules) and exploitation (applying learned rules). Task difficulty is manipulated across two versions: the easy version involves three features (color, shape, number), with six possible classification rules, while the difficult version introduces a fourth feature (size).

This task is available here to download on GitHub, along with more details about the task itself, and Python notebooks to pre-process data.

Citations: 

Del Sordo, G.C., Tardivo, F., & Papesh, M.H. (2026). The Complex Card Matching Task (CCMT): A PsychoPy-based task for studying the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Journal of Open Research Software, 14(6). https://doi.org/10.5334/jors.549

Del Sordo, G.C., & Papesh, M.H. (2026). Exploration vs. Exploitation in a Novel Complex Card Matching Task: Evidence from Pupillometry. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 26. 850-871. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-025-01377-y