Continuous music, a fixation cross (or blank screen), followed by a stimulus

A similar question was asked recently, and I tacked on my question but didn’t get a response so I thought I’d post my own thread. Here’s what I want to do:

Have an audio file playing as a participant performs a binomial categorization task in which (during each trial) there is a fixation cross (or blank screen) of 500ms before each stimulus (e.g., word) is presented for the participant to respond to.

What I’ve done is created a Trial with 2 Events: the audio file and a stimulus list. Then, I expanded the stimulus list into 60 Events. Then, I set the Trial to randomize all Events within the Trial, but for the first (i.e., the audio). Then, I set the audio file to play until the end of the Trial. This achieves most of what I want, except that I can’t have a fixation cross/blank screen between each stimulus.

Now, even THIS is a compromise. I wanted to run 3 blocks of 20 stimuli while the audio file played continuously, instead of 60 stimuli all randomized. This seems like a really simple thing, and one that many social cognitivists will want to do. That SuperLab doesn’t seem to allow for this is a severe limitation that is making us consider using other software.

I found a solution to my fixation cross problem. I added Feedback, such that after every correct response (i.e., any possible response), a fixation cross is presented. The fixation cross is an Event that is NOT part of the Trial in question. The limitation is that the first stimulus never has a fixation cross.

Have your experiment set up as follows:

Block (Sound) -----> Trial Sound -------> Event Sound

In the Event Editor, after selecting Audio File for an event, you will be in the Stimulus tab. Have “Wait for audio to finish playing” checked off. Select “Allow Audio to continue playing until ends on its own.” Under the Input tab, select “Immediately after the event is presented.”

Randomizing events within a trial is rarely what the user wants. Instead try randomizing trials within a block. The rest should look like this:

Block ------> Trial ------> Fixation Cross (500 ms)
------> Event Stim List (linked to the same trial)