[solved] Randomizing conditions and trials using Python code

SillyNapalm

Please help me figure out why my randomization script fails. The experiment consists of 3 blocks and each block includes 5 conditions with 12 files in each. I randomize blocks and conditions through open-sesame loop function, and I tried to randomize the files through Python script. It does all the randomization, but it only picks the first file from the list instead of going in order until it exhausts the list and switches to the next block. Please look over the script and tell me how I can patch this up.

Thanks!

This script is inserted at the first sequence with some commentary:

import random

global Conditions

global Blocks

Conditions is a dictionary in which the key is the specific condition and the values are the specifi stimuli pairs used in each trial

Conditions = {
'Far_Large_No': ['10-30', '10-40', '20-40', '20-50', '30-10', '30-50', '30-60', '40-10', '40-20', '40-60', '40-70', '50-20'],

'Far_Small_No' : ['1-3', '1-4', '2-4', '2-5', '3-1', '3-5', '3-6', '4-1', '4-2', '4-6', '4-7', '5-2'],

 'Close_Small_No' : ['1-2', '2-1', '2-3', '3-2', '3-4', '4-3', '4-5', '5-4', '5-6', '6-5', '6-7', '7-6'],

 'Close_Large_No' :['10-20', '20-10', '20-30', '30-20', '30-40', '40-30', '40-50', '50-40', '50-60', '60-50', '60-70', '70-60'], 

'Same_Same_Yes': ['1-1', '2-2', '3-3', '4-4', '5-5', '6-6', '7-7', '8-8', '10-10', '20-20', '30-30', '40-40', '50-50', '60-60', '70-70', '80-80']}

Blocks = ['Numbers', 'Dots', 'Mixed']

shuffle the pairs so they will be randomized during experiment

for cond in Conditions:

    random.shuffle(Conditions[cond])


This script is inserted at the trials loop which randomizes conditions and holds the trial sequence:

import string

global Conditions

global Blocks

global Stim

global theTrue

global cond

get information from the variables in the trial loop that indicate what type of trial comes next

print 'conditions', Conditions

distance = self.get('Distance')

size = self.get('Size')

block = self.get('Blocks')

catch = self.get('Catch')

print 'catch', catch

make a string that matches the filenames and store that name in Stim

cond = distance + '_' + size + '_' + catch

ctr1 = 0

ctr2 = 0

ctr3 = 0

ctr4 = 0

ctr5 = 0

Stim = ''

if cond == 'Far_Large_No':

    Stim = Conditions[cond][ctr1]; 

    val = Conditions[cond][ctr1];

    ctr1 = ctr1 + 1

if cond == 'Far_Small_No':

    Stim = Conditions[cond][ctr2]

    val = Conditions[cond][ctr2]

    ctr2 = ctr2 + 1

if cond == 'Close_Large_No':

    Stim = Conditions[cond][ctr3]

    val = Conditions[cond][ctr3]

    ctr3 = ctr3 + 1

if cond == 'Close_Small_No':

    Stim = Conditions[cond][ctr4]

    val = Conditions[cond][ctr4]

    ctr4 = ctr1 + 1

if cond == 'Same_Same_Yes':

    Stim = Conditions[cond][ctr5]

    val = Conditions[cond][ctr5]

    ctr5 = ctr5 + 1

Stim = block + '_' + cond + '_' + Stim

self.experiment.set('Stim', Stim)

print 'Stim', Stim

In the stimulus sketchpad set the inset image as '[Stim].png'
separate the values of the two numbers presented to decide what is the correct response

ind = val.find('-')

number1 = val[0:ind]

number2 = val[ind+1:]

number1 = int(number1)

number2 = int(number2)

if number1 > number2:

    theTrue = 'q'

elif number1 < number2:

    theTrue = 'p'

else:

    theTrue = 'space'

self.experiment.set('theTrue', theTrue)

sebastiaan

Hi SillyNapalm,

Could it be that you set the ctr[X] variables back to 0 at every trial? As I understand it, you want those to increment, right? So you might want to move the part where you set the ctr[X] variables to 0 to some place at the start of a block/ experiment (where exactly depends on what you want to do, of course).

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Sebastiaan