Random probes in experiment

ingew

Hello,

For an experiment I want people to read a long text, and during this text i want them to be randomly interrupted (every two or three minutes) by a question. After answering the question, they should get back to the reading text.

Does anyone know how to create these random questions in OpenSesame?

Thanks!

Josh

Hi,

For random questions you may want to copy something from sites like this one: http://allysrandomage.blogspot.nl/2007/06/101-random-questions.html

As for how you could interrupt participants at random intervals, it would be best to set the duration of your text sketchpad to =random.randint(120000,180000). This picks an amount of milliseconds between 120000 (two minutes) and 180000 (three minutes). You may need to 'import' the random class first. To do this, place an inline script at the beginning of your experiment and insert the line from math import random.

Your question sketchpad and response item should be placed right after the text sketchpad, and together, these items should be placed in a sequence that is placed in a loop. You then want to run the loop plenty of times, probably with a break-if statement to exit the loop when participants press a certain key?

Cheers

Josh