CSUMB_SSBU_Study

CSUMB SSBU - Compiled Experiments

This section contains the ‘compiled’ experiments based on the psytoolkit scripts used for the project. I say ‘compiled’ in quotes, because realistically these are technically transpiled, as the code is converted from psytoolkit’s DSL, to HTML files.

This section is an overview of (hopefully) anything you would need to know about the experiments

Important note regarding experiment modification

These experiments have been slightly modified, after psytoolkit transpilation. This is due to the fact that there were some features not available in the pre-provided experiment, of which we built some basic mods for. For more information, see here.

OS & Browser support

See below for tested and verified browsers/OS’s that have been tested with the current experiments.

OS	Browser	Supported
Windows 10	Chrome	YES
Windows 11	Chrome	YES
MacOS - Sonoma 14.5	Chrome	YES

Running the experiments

It is highly recommended to run the experiments with an OS and browser that has been tested, as suggested above. We suggest using chrome, however other browsers are likely to work, but not guaranteed. Additionally, other Operating Systems should work, but again it is highly suggested to run this on systems we have already tested and verified :)

If chrome is already your default browser, then you can simply ‘double click’ the file to open the experiment. Otherwise, you will have to ‘right click’, and open the experiment file in chrome.

Experiments List

• Go No Go - Test inhibitory control in participants, see more here
• Posner Cue Task- See here
• Simple reaction task - Test participant reaction time
• Task Switching - Task switching, or set-shifting, is an executive function that involves the ability to unconsciously shift attention between one task and another. See more information here

Data output

Once the experiment is complete, our mod will run a set of JavaScript functions which will automagically export the results to a CSV file, and download it to your file system.

Below is a simple, high level overview of what the data output CSV columns mean.

GoNoGo output

• 1 - Name of task: go or nogo / training or trial
• 2 - The response speed (in nogo trials, this is 2000, the timeout)
• 3 - The error status (0 is correct, 1 is error)

TaskSwitching output

• 1 - letter

  numbers

  mixed and TestOrTrial

• 2 - position of stimulus 1,2,3,4 (top left, top right, bottom right, bottom left
• 3 - tasktype (1 or 2)
• 4 - the letter stimulus
• 5 - the number stimulus
• 6 - type of block (1=just task 1; 2=just task 2; 0=both tasks mixed)
• 7 - 1=task switch , 0=task repeat
• 8 - status (1=correct, 2=error, 3=too slow)
• 9 - response time (ms)
• 10 - total time (response time + button release time)

Simple Reaction output

Ref: https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/deary_liewald.html

• 1 - Test or trials
• 2 - training (1=training, 0=real data collection)
• 3 - number of choices (1 in simple block, 4 in choice block)
• 4 - time between response and next trial (between 1 and 3 seconds)
• 5 - the x-coordinate of the target stimulus
• 6 - the response time (ms)
• 7 - status (1=correct, 2=error, 3=too slow)

Posner Cue output

Ref: https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/cueing.html

• 1 - Test or training data
• 2 - cue position (cueleft, cueright)
• 3 - target position (targetleft, targetright)
• 4 - cue validity (cued, uncued)
• 5 - cued or uncued
• 6 - cue validity as number (1=cued, 0=uncued)
• 7 - Response time (ms)
• 8 - Status (1=correct, 2=wrong, 3=timeout)

Versioning

Versioning has been added as of 12/6/2024. Versions can be found in the versions folder. This is to simply keep me sane and have backups of previous versions in case I (Zach) mess something up :D