CogFlow: Open-Source Solution for the Construction of Modular Cognitive Psychology Experiments

Proliferating web-based experimentation platforms have substantially broadened access to cognitive psychology research infrastructure, yet no existing tool simultaneously supports continuous and trial-based paradigms, maintains institutional data-protection compliance, works across online and laboratory settings, and operates within the constraints of collaborative multi-site teams. We present CogFlow, a free, open-source, self-hostable web platform for constructing, deploying, and managing cognitive psychology experiments. CogFlow’s JSON-centric architecture uses a single declarative configuration file to specify both study design and runtime instructions for the Interpreter engine, supporting a broad task library including Random Dot Motion, Flanker, SART, Stroop and Emotional Stroop, Simon, Task Switching, PVT, MOT, N-back, Gabor patch, Continuous Image Presentation, and Security Operations Center (SOC)-style multitask environments, in both trial-based and continuous-presentation modes. A no-code graphical Builder lowers the barrier to experiment authoring while preserving full parameter-level configurability for researchers who require it; results are collected as encrypted payloads with multi-factor authentication gating and pseudonymized participant linkage, supporting compliance with GDPR, UK GDPR, and IRB data management requirements. The platform integrates natively with SONA Systems and Prolific Academic for participant recruitment, provides in-portal descriptive analysis and charting, and includes a CogFlow To Go packaging mode for offline laboratory deployment with Lab Streaming Layer (LSL) support for physiological co-registration. Software-layer runtime benchmarks confirm stable performance consistent with the broader literature on browser-based platforms. CogFlow is available at https://cogflow.app under the BSD 3-Clause license; contributor roles are tracked using the CRediT taxonomy with versioned archival via Zenodo.