[solved] Presenting stimuli at different frequencies

robtaylor

Hi Sebastiaan,

The stimuli that I wish to present needs to follow the normal curve, and so some stimuli will be presented, randomly, more frequently than others during the loop. For example, say I have 10 experimental stimuli whose frequencies are as follows

1 -> 1
2 -> 2
3 -> 3
4 -> 4
5 -> 5
6 -> 5
7 -> 4
8 -> 3
9 -> 2
10 - > 1

So here there would be 30 cycles in the loop, though not every stimulus is presented the same number of times. How can I make it so each stimulus is presented a specific number of times during the loop? I realise that I could simply input the stimuli individually under the variable name, but the experiment I am running has far more stimuli and requires at least 200 cycles per loop. I was wondering if there was an easier way to achieve this?

Kind Regards

Rob

sebastiaan

Hi Rob,

There is. As you say, for a low number of stimuli, it's probably better to manually create a list, but ...

Method 1

... for a large nr of stimuli you could draw a number from a gaussian distribution. You could do this by inserting an inline_script at the start of the trial, with (something like) the following code in the prepare phase.

import random
nr = round(random.gauss(5, 1)) # Mean = 5, Stdev = 1
self.experiment.set('my_random_number', nr)

See http://docs.python.org/library/random.html#random.gauss

Method 2

This has the disadvantage that you cannot control exactly how often each number occurs (although for a large number of trials this probably doesn't matter). If you want exact control, you could add an inline_script to the start of the experiment, with (something like) the following code in the run phase:

import random
self.experiment.nr_list = []
self.experiment.nr_list += [1]*5
self.experiment.nr_list += [2]*10
self.experiment.nr_list += [3]*5
random.shuffle(self.experiment.nr_list)

This generates a randomly ordered list of numbers, where '1' occurs 5 times, '2' occurs 10 times, etc. To draw a number from this list on every trial, add an inline_script at the start of the trial, with (something like) the following code in the prepare phase:

nr = self.experiment.nr_list.pop()
self.experiment.set('my_random_number', nr)

Hope this helps!

Sebastiaan

robtaylor

Hi Sebastiaan
Sorry for my delayed reply, and thank you for your help. That helps greatly!
Great support!
Cheers,
Rob