Attentional Network Task Help

vatsalthebest

Hi

I am trying to develop an attentional network task for my research thesis. I intend to run this task on a android based device.

Here are the detail of the experiment.

The task starts with a cue the precludes the appearence of a target. A pictorial description of the task can be found here : http://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/119352/fpsyg-06-00065-HTML/image_m/fpsyg-06-00065-g001.jpg

Let me describe the task design. The task has 3 IVs which are:
1. Target position (Left & Right)
2. Cue (No cue left, No cue right, neutral cue left, Neutral cue right, valid cue left, valid cue right, invalid cue left, invalid cue right). Although, the above-mentioned link shows only four possible cue condition I've included all possible situation for the cue.
3. Target type ( congruent left, congruent right, incongruent left, incongruent right)

I have read the beginner tutorial and they were much helpful. But, I guess I must have done something wrong in designing the experiment. The task is not showing target slid which it should. I've tried doing things differently like I've tried re-reading the cueing task tutorial but nothing seems to solve the issue. I also edited the if and statement on the sketchpad item for my target slides.

I am uploading the experiment along with stimulus files. Note, currently I've only made the practice block since my primary concern is to display the stimulus properly.

Can anyone please help me on this?

Thanks

Vatsal

Josh

Hi Vatsal,

So the experiment displays the cue screen correctly, but doesn't follow up with a target screen? Have you tried displaying the target screen outside the trial loop? The problem may also be caused due to the logic of your code. Can you show me how your loop item is organized?

And it might be a good idea to not only read the tutorial but to actually make the experiment as well - in case you haven't done that yet!

Cheers,

Josh

vatsalthebest

Hey Josh,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes the experiment doesn't display the target screen. I have attached a screenshots of the loop.

I am not quite sure how should I display the target outside the trial loop.

I have defined the levels of the variable so that they can I can have a separate JPG file to be presented during the target slide according to the target type and cue condition.

cue_valid_l corresponds to valid cue condition pointing towards left side

similarly, cue_valid_r corresponds to valid cue condition pointing towards right side.

In case of target types. There could be 4 possible target types.

So, tar_c_L corresponds to the congruent target arrows pointing towards left side.

Similarly, tar_c_R corresponds to the congruent target arrows pointing towards right side. The same case goes with the incongruent type (which will include right and left).

Thus, I've if there is a valid left cue condition and the target type being congruent left I have a separate JPG file (which in this is named as Valid_L_C_L---left valid cue target type being left congruent) to be presented. Similarly, if we have a valid left cue condition but this time the target type being congruent right I have a separate JPG file. So, in cue condition theoretically there are only 4 types of cue (valid, invalid, neutral and no) but in my task for the sake of ease I've divided each cue condition into two; left and right. Similarly, theoretically there are target type there are only two types congruent and incongruent. However again, for the sake of ease I've divided these into two with congruent having two (left and right) and incongruent having two (right and left)

I made the experiment after watching the tutorial but the only issue was to present the target on the basis of two variables. May be I must've ignored some step I'll do it again

PS: I ran the experiment on opensesame 3.0 and it gives me the following error 'var.cue_Type=="cue""valid""left"' is not a valid conditional statement

Thanks a lot for your reply

eduard

Hi,

For one, I think your loop table is a little convoluted. You have three independent variables:

1) target location : left vs. right
2) Target congruency: valid vs. invalid
3) Cue type: left, right, no, both

Together you have 2 x 2 x 4 = 16 unique trials and not 72 as you have in your loop table. If you restructure your program according to these variables, it will become surely a lot easier.

Aside form that, I tried your experiment, and I also got this error message. It is a little weird, I don't know where it originates from, but I'm sure we can fix it. I suggest, you work on the loop table and simplify the structure a little, and once this is done, I'll have a look and try to figure out what the error is trying to tell us.

Good luck,

Eduard

vatsalthebest

Thanks Eduard!

I have now incorporated the changes you suggested. I made changes in the loop. Though, the error still exists I have attached the task

Thanks again

eduard

Hi Vatsal,

First of all, apologies for the late response, it slipped me through earlier. In case you are still working on this experiment, I attach an updated version of it. it is a basic version of your design. I hope I didn't change it too much. Hope it helps.

Best,

Eduard

vatsalthebest

Hey Edward!

Thanks a lot!! It works perfectly.

Yeah you made some changes but I've made some more changes and the experiment is running pretty good.

Though, there are some issues that I need to work on.

The proportion of valid trials in comparison to other cue conditions should be different. So currently there are 56 trials in the loop sequence. Where there are total 12 invalid cue conditions, 14 valid cue conditions, 13 neutral cue conditions and 8 no cue conditions. However, ideally there should be 36 valid cue conditions out of 56 trials and the rest of the 10 trials the other conditions should be distributed equally. I am not sure whether this can be achieved with the "apply weight" options in the loop sequence. Any thoughts on that?

Secondly, I need to increase the size of the image displayed so that it can be visible enough on a 8'' display. How can I do that?

Thanks again for your time and help!

Vatsal

Josh

Hi Vatsal,

The loop table shows you which conditions (factor combinations) will appear in your experiment. You can alter the cells as you please, so getting 36 valid cue trials and 10 of each other type really comes down to just making the cue column as such. You only have to make sure that the other factors are distributed evenly across each cue type.

As for the image size, your sketchpad has three icons in the upper-right corner. When clicking the middle one, you can choose to view the script. In the script, you'll see a variable scale with value 1. You can change this to a larger value (e.g. 1.2 for a 20% increase).

Cheers,

Josh

vatsalthebest

Hi Josh!

Thanks it works pretty well. I've made changes in the cell manually for making the respective adjustment in the cue types.

Thanks a lot!

Vatsal