How to limit response keys to only the selected keys

SuperLab Experiments
1

Hi,

I’m new to Superlab and have a query about how to limit the response keys to only the selected keys. I’m writing a simple and biconditioning experiment whereby participants are presented two stimuli of two different food items on each trial. They are asked to guess, initially, whether the presented items will cause an allergic reaction in an imaginary patient. I need the participants to press either the Y key to indicate they think the two items will cause an allergic reaction, or the N key to indicate that the two items will not cause an allergic reaction. Immediately following their response, they will be given the appropriate feedback of “Correct, allergic reaction” or “Incorrect, no reaction”. Then the next trial is presented and so on. At the moment, I am unable to limit participant’s response to just the Y or N key. That is, although pressing the Y key will lead to the “Correct, allergic reaction” feedback, and pressing the N key will lead to the other outcome of “Incorrect, allergic reaction”, pressing any other keys on the keypad will also result in the feedback of “Incorrect, allergic reaction”.

Can anyone tell me how to set it up on Superlab so that pressing any other keys besides Y and N will not result in anything, i.e., only pressing Y or N will lead to the desired feedback?

Cheers,
Titania

2

Unfortunately, at this point this is not possible in SuperLab. Sometimes people get around this by putting a sticker on the keys, or using a response pad.

3

Hi Monika,

Thank you for your reply. I have tried with the Cedrus RB-830 response pads which has 8 buttons. Still I’m unable to restrict responses to certain keys. That is, I can set it up such that the bottom two keys lead to two different feedbacks, but pressing any other keys also lead to some feedback. In other words, I encounter the same problem using the response pads as I did with the keyboard. Now you said that it is currently impossible to limit response to select keys does this apply to the response pads too? Also, How about limiting feedback only to certain actions?

Titania.

4

I should have been more clear regarding my response pad suggestion. I suggested the response pad because the keys are bigger and there are not as many as the keyboard. This way a participant will have less of a chance of pressing the other buttons.