[open] Tetris + secondary reaction time task

Curry79

Hi everybody,

I think I need your help here.... I want to program an experiment which at some point should start a video game (namely Tetris), and while they play tetris, I want participants to perform on a secondary reaction time task.
After 5 minutes, the game should stop and participants should continue with questionnaires etc...

Can anyone give me hints on how this might be realizable?

Thank you so much in advance!

Diana

sebastiaan

Hi Diana,

What exactly do you have in mind? Do you

... want participants to play a standalone video game and then have them switch back to the experiment after five minutes? In this case you could even use two separate computers, one running the experiment and another one running Tetris.

or

... want the video game to be embedded in the experiment itself? In this case, you will really have to create a Python implementation of Tetris and run it from within OpenSesame. (That won't be easy.)

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Curry79

Hi Sebastiaan, thank you for ur answer.
Indeed I would want the second option because participants should perform on a secondary reaction time task while playing tetris so I guess if I want Open Sesame to record reaction times during game play...
To make things worse: the game itself (whether they play successfully or not) should also be recorded...
I am lucky to have a programmer who works with me, however, he is not familiar with open sesame so we agreed that I first find out what would be possible within the program.

Do you see that this is 'do-able' within open sesame or do you think I should rely on something else?

Thanks a lot for your help.
Diana

sebastiaan

Hi Diana,

I am lucky to have a programmer who works with me, however, he is not familiar with open sesame so we agreed that I first find out what would be possible within the program. Do you see that this is 'do-able' within open sesame or do you think I should rely on something else?

Yes, it's certainly do-able for a programmer. Basically, you would just implement the game in Python, and then embed the Python script in OpenSesame. Since you can use PyGame from within OpenSesame, it might be worth taking one of the existing PyGame-based Tetris clones as a starting point:

• http://pygame.org/tags/tetris

See also:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/back-ends/legacy/
• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/python/about/#the-inline_script-item

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Curry79

Oh wow That is a very good hint! Thank you so much for this !
So I use the python script for tetris yay -- and then I program a secondary reaction time task along?
Is it possible to have the game stopped after 5 minutes? And to "logfile" the results within th game? results as in how good or bad the participant performed?
Again thank you so much for your help. Diana

sebastiaan

So I use the python script for tetris yay -- and then I program a secondary reaction time task along?

Yes, that would be the idea.

Is it possible to have the game stopped after 5 minutes?

Of course. You'll program the game yourself (or at least adapt it), so you can have it stop whenever you want and have it do whatever you like.

And to "logfile" the results within th game? results as in how good or bad the participant performed?

Yes, you can access the OpenSesame logfile in a script, as described here:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/usage/logging/#usingpythoninlinescript

Good luck!
Sebastiaan