Frequently Asked Questions

Participant payment information is securely stored within the system and is only accessible to the lab administrator. Researchers must update participant status in SONA within 2 business days after each timeslot deadline. The VBL team then reviews these statuses, contacts budget holders for approval, and processes payments. For detailed instructions on updating participant status, denying payment, and handling special cases, see: Granting or Denying Payment.

No. Participants are only paid if they actually took part. If you cancel a session before participants arrive, they will not be compensated for it. VBL also does not cover travel expenses or other costs related to participation. The 24-hour cancellation rule applies to student participants only, so it does not restrict researchers, but please give participants as much notice as possible.

Along with monetary compensation, we also allow payment via gift card, where the amount must be equivalent to what our study payment rules specify. Please note that we do not process or arrange gift cards ourselves — researchers need to arrange this themselves.

Proof of payment is still required — if the gift card is sent online, CC us on the email confirming it was sent; if it's handed over in person, send a printed and signed declaration confirming the student has received the card.

Please add the following statement in the Acknowledgments section of your manuscript: We thank the VU Behavioral Lab (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for participant recruitment, lab usage, and data collection support.

For physical lab studies, you must first reserve a lab according to our booking rules before requesting approval. Lab reservation depends on availability, so the earlier, the better.

For online studies, you must request approval at least 2 weeks in advance, preferably even earlier.

Yes. If no new time slots are added within 3 months, your study will be deactivated. This ensures that the system only displays active and available studies for participants.

External researchers (non-VU employees) cannot be given access to the system. Instead, a VU researcher must manage the study and recruit participants on their behalf. Participant payments must go through a VU budget number, or through a gift card that either the VU researcher or the external collaborator arranges directly.

Unfortunately, at the moment, external participants cannot sign up or receive payments through the system.

Prescreeners are standard questionnaires (e.g., demographic or personality surveys) that participants fill out once a year. These are stored outside of SONA and used to help researchers access important participant information without having to collect it repeatedly for every study. Due to VU's data privacy and storage policies, prescreening data is not stored in SONA and cannot be used to automatically filter or preselect participants for your study. While you can specify eligibility criteria (e.g., gender, age) in your SONA study description, students may overlook these and still register. As a researcher, you retain the right to reject ineligible participants or exclude their data. Please note that applying eligibility restrictions may significantly reduce your participant pool.