Building better experiments

Using Builder

All the base knowledge we assume at the start of this workshop can be learnt from this 15 minute video

This shows you how to make the ‘posnerTargets’ demo available from previous examples

What makes a PsychoPy experiment?

Open the posnerTargets.psyexp file. An experiment in Builder has:

  • a single Flow (specifies the order in which things occur and whether they repeat in a Loop)

  • one or more Routines that are combined in the Flow

  • several Components that are combined to form Routines

The conditions file

Open the conditions.xlsx file…

If you are going to change something on every repeat of a routine (e.g. stimulus location changes on each trial) you can use a Conditions file. This is fed into the loop surrounding the routine.

Each header is a parameter, each row corresponds to the value of that parameter on each repeat/trial.

Making edits

As a basic first step let’s add some instructions. Select “insert routine” and then click on your flow to add this to the start of your experiment. Click on the routine and add:

  • A Text component for your instructions

  • A keyboard, mouse or button component to end the routine when your participant has finished reading.

Note

As a general styling tip, we suggest to keep the number of routines to a minimum. Got several sets of instructions? use a loop!

Let’s practice making edits to make sure we are comfortable with builder view.

Exercises (10 minutes)

  • add 2 more trials to the conditions file; on one trial a ‘neutral’ arrow image will be presented on the left on the other the ‘neutral’ arrow image will be presented on the right

  • add a routine to thank participants for taking part at the end

  • in the thanks routine, ask participants to press a button to end the task.

Running online studies


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