Conditional branching Experiment

I am building a conditional branching program using Superlab 4.5. I want to present participants with the options of choosing from two different metals on each trial, say gold and diamond on trial 1. Depending on their response, by pressing either the g or the d key, a different trial will be presented. For example, if participants chose gold, they will then be presented with a choice of diamond or titanium, whereas if they chose silver in the first trial, they will be presented with the options aluminium or copper as the next trial, and so on. Please find attached what I’ve done so far. Any comments are welcome. I have based what I have done so far on the demo Letters and Numbers as I think it is similar to what I want to do for my experiment. At the momebt, my problem is that I can’t get the right block to be presented after the designated response. Not sure where I went wrong.

Any help is much appreciated

Gold or Silver.sl4 (7.31 KB)

How many levels in the decision tree do you plan on going?

About 4-5 levels.

Currently SuperLab can only go to 2-3 levels.

Hi Monika,

Say I’d like to build a conditional branching experiment involving 3 levels, which, according to you is the maximum number of levels possible in Superlab, how would I go about setting it up? I have attached what I’ve done so far with this experiment. Can you please tell me where I went wrong and why I can’t get the appropriate trial to be presented based on participants’ response?

Hi,

I did not see your experiment attached. Can you attach it as an Experiment Package? We will be attending the Psychonomics Annual Meeting in Seattle for the rest of the week. I will be able to look over your experiment early next week.

Hi Monika,

Thank you for having a look.

Titania

Gold or Silver.zip (2.11 KB)

Thank you. As I was looking into this some more I realized the current SuperLab version can only achieve 2 levels. I apologize for speaking out too soon.

Hi Monika,
That’s fine, but can you please tell me where I went wrong with the experiment, i.e., why I can’t get the program to go to the desired outcome using the macros in the block editor.

Thanks

Your macro is only selected for the first block, and not the second and third. Is this what you intended?

Hi Monika,

What I intend to do is set up my experiment so that at the initial stage, participants are presented with a choice of either gold or silver. Depending on their response, they will be directed to two different outcomes. For instance, if they were to choose gold, I’d like to set it up such that they are then presented with the trial diamond or titanium. Alternatively, if they chose silver, they’d be presented with the trial aluminium or copper. The way my experiment is set up at the moment, regardless of the response, the participant is presented with diamond and titanium trial, then followed by aluminium and copper trial. All I want is for the presentation of the outcome to be dependent on the response made by the participant. At the moment, this is a one level decision tree, which I hope to build to at least two, and if possible three levels.

Please advice on how I can restrict the presentation of trials using macro in the block editor tab to be based on participants’ responses.

Regards,
Titania

A modified version of your experiment is attached. The changes that were made are below. The first block is where the changes were made.

  • The [B]Use code values to determine the correct response[/B] was unselected under the [B]Correct Response[/B] tab for all your events.
  • Your code values were attached to [B]An event or stimulus list item[/B]. This was changed to "A trial".
  • The macro you had in place was modified. The Expression now states "Number of Trials Presented in This Block is equal to 1 trials (Using only the last 1 trials in the block and Trials marked with the code "Gold or Silver" equal to "Gold")
  • If True: Exit this block and present block "Diamond or Titanium"
  • If False: Exit this block and present "Aluminum or Copper"

Feedback:

  • Under the response is correct, [B]Change value of code "Gold or Silver" to "Gold"[/B] and then [B]Present the remaining events in the trial[/B].

Gold or SilverrevB.sl4 (7.11 KB)