[solved] reading times

sylvsav

Hello! I would like to ask you if it's possible to collect reading times after reading pieces of text. I cannot find this measure in OS variables' presentation/definition in the documentation area.

Specifically, reading times is the amount of time (in milliseconds) that someone needs to read a piece of text. Since I haven't found this variable in the OS, I put in my experiment a response time measure (with a space bar) after each piece of text. Does this count as a reading times measure? Namely, does the response time measure collect the time that participant took to read the piece of text until he/she pressed the space bar?

Thank you
Sylvia

sebastiaan

Hi Sylvia,

What you could do is the following.

1. Present your text using a form_text_display. This will normally wait until you click on a button, but you can change this by editing the script and adding the line set only_render yes. This will make the form_text_display non-interactive, i.e. behaving like a sketchpad with a 0 ms duration.
2. After the form_text_display, insert a keyboard_response. The response time as recorded by the keyboard_response will now correspond to the reading time.

See also:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/forms/custom-forms/#non-interactive-forms

Does that make sense?

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

sylvsav

Thank you for your response Sebastiaan!

Actually, all the text items that I have put in the experiment are all sketchpad items that contain the text pieces as a picture. Specifically, I have separate sketchpad items that present pieces of text as manipulated variables. After each sketchpad, I have put a keyboard response. The sketchpad item sits there until the participant finishes reading the text piece presented and, so, he/she presses the space bar.
So, can I do what you suggested by keeping the sketchpad items instead of changing them in text display items?

Thank you again
Sylvia

sebastiaan

So, can I do what you suggested by keeping the sketchpad items instead of changing them in text display items?

Sure. In that case you have the simplest of simplest experiments: Just present an image and collect a response time!

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

sylvsav

Thank you so much Sebastiaan!

Sylvia