You are unsure whether you want to complete an experiment you began an hour ago. According to the rules of informed consent, when you ask the researcher if you have to continue, the researcher should respond with ________. A. "You have the right to drop out of the study at any time." B. "I’m sorry, the experiment must continue." C. "Please continue. I will debrief you afterwards." D. "You may drop the study now, but you will forfeit credit."

Informed consent refers to the process of getting permission from the subjects before the experiment takes place. This means that the person gets full understanding of the procedure, its implications and its consequences.

Informed consent has 3 main characteristics:

Disclosure of information: the researcher must give all the information to the subjects.
Competency of the subject to make a decision: The person needs to have a full capacity to make decisions when doing this.
Voluntary nature of the decision: The consent cannot be coercitive and it must be voluntary.

In this case, you gave informed consent but you're not sure if you want to complete the experiment. According to the third rule, the consent cannot be coercitive but either can be the participation in itself, therefore, if you want to withdraw from the experiment, the researcher should tell you that you have the right to drop out of the study at any time.