Policies

We understand that life happens. We ask that you give us at least 48 hours notice if you need to cancel or reschedule study visits. This is because we are still charged for MRIs ($750, ouch!) if we do not give enough notice to the scanning center.

Please reply to messages from our lab within 24 hours. After 48 hours without a reply, we may cancel any scheduled appointments that you have to make them available to other participants and protect our staff’s time.

We will pay you in three installments: after the interview screening (up to $35), after your last lab visit (up to $236 for the 1-week observational study or $668 for the combined 3 weeks of observational and experimental studies), and after the 2-month follow-up survey (up to $30). We can provide payments as cash, check, or gift cards. You need to return all study equipment to receive payment for study participation — otherwise, we use your study payment to help cover the cost of replacing equipment.

Confidentiality is very important because we ask a lot of personal questions and we want you to give honest answers. That’s why we won’t share any personal information about you with anyone outside the study, not even parents. We give you a study ID, so your name isn’t in any study datasets. We keep your contact information in a separate, password-protected file that is only available to study staff.