Psychopy response times, decimal point

amoupsou

Dear All,

I have a question regarding the output from the psychopy backend regarding response times. The numbers appear in scientific numbering. However, I am troubled on how to interpret those numbers. Does the lack of a decimal point mean that the response was less than a second? And does the comma always appear after the second-indicating number?

Thank you very much!

Fab

Hi @amoupsou,

Do these number also appear in thta way if you output them to the console during the task? Try it to see... Hard to tell what the issue is without seeing the task but assuming that the issue is not with the task, my guess is that the issue may be with your regional setting on your computer and how Excel interprets the numerical values (depending on your regional setting, the decimal point is interpreted as "thousands"). The values you're sharing in the screen capture are huge (if you look carefully at the exponents, you can see for example that the first value is 7527670000000000). CSV files use the comma as the decimal point. If the regional setting on your computer is not ser to a compatible region (e.g., USA), then Excel would interpret it as thousands while expecting "," to mark the decimal point).

My recommendation:

1- check whether the RT inside your task is measured correctly. Simplest way: display it on the screeb (e.g., with a feedback object) oruse code to output it to the console. If it appears wrong inside your task, then the issue is with the task.

2-If the issue is not with the task, change your computer's regional setting to USA, UK or some other regions where the decimal point is "." and not "," and then open the csv file with the data, of open a new dociment Excel document and import the csv file with data through the data import tool (instead of opening it through "open...").

Hope this helps,

Fabrice.