[solved] Response collection during target display

bstilwel

I'm sure this is a relatively easy fix, but how can I make sure the keyboard response is being collected during the target display presentation. So, my project is similar to the Theeuwes additional singleton paradigm, in that there is a visual search display and the participant responds to the orientation of a line segment located in the center of the stimuli. How can I have a keyboard response collected during the target display, instead of after it is presented (and also have the reaction time data stored)? The only way I've figured out (with my limited programming skills) is to have the target display then after that a keyboard response. I want the target display to only last until a response is made or 2000 ms have passed (whichever comes first).

In addition to that, how would I save the response collected and use it on the subsequent display which provides feedback? I'm doing a reward study, so a correct response will give the participant either a high or low reward (as long as presenting the running total for the experiment thus far).

One other issue I'm having difficulty with is setting up a variable "Category SOA" which has 3 different values. I'm presenting a category name at the beginning of every trial, which is then followed by the target display. I want the participant to be unaware of when exactly the target display will appear, so the SOA between category presentation and target display will be randomly assigned to one of 3 different lengths. How would I do this?

I would appreciate any and all help! So far this forum has been fantastic in helping me out!!

bstilwel

Never mind on the display and keyboard response part. I apologize for missing that in the beginner tutorial when I went through it the first couple times. I'm not sure how I missed that!

bstilwel

For the feedback question, again I didn't utilize the tutorial to its full potential and I apologize. However, I am still stuck on how I would implement a variable reward (either 5 cents or 1 cent) and then the running total. I want each trial to add the reward given on that trial to a running total for the experiment up to that point. I know how to write this in English (I just did) but I'm struggling on how to "translate" into Python/Open Sesame lingo.

eduard

Hi,

The basic strategy (and pythonic wording) to update the total reward is following:

if correct_response:
    total_reward += current_reward

This you do on every trial (so within the trial_loop). Additionally, you have to initialize the total reward once in the beginning of the experiment: total_reward = 0.

Finally, you want to have variable reward. This you can accomplish in multiple ways, depending on what you exactly mean with "variable". If it can be completely random,
you can create a list: possible_reward = [1,5] and pick every trial randomly from it: current_reward = random.choice(possible_reward).
If it has to be counterbalanced, you need to do it slightly differently, which isn't much harder though.

Let us know if you need more help.

Good luck,

Eduard