Time-Dependent Trials

Hi there,

I’m attempting to create an experiment in which the amount of time that an event is display for is dependent on the amount of time that was taken to complete the previous five events. Participants are first presented with an image of a square that they must click. Once the square is clicked, another square appears in a different random location, which must also be clicked. There are five such squares and the reaction time for each click is recorded.

Once the five squares have been clicked, we’d like to display an image of a face for a variable length of time, depending on how long it took them to click all five squares (i.e., if it took them a relatively long time to click the five squares, we’d like to display the face for a short period of time; if it took them relatively less time to click the squares, we’d like to display the face for a longer period of time).

Is this possible in SuperLab?

Thanks,
Jeremy

It is not possible to make it linearly proportional to the reaction time of the previous five trials. However, it is possible to achieve this if it’s okay, to do it in steps, e.g. if RT is greater than N1 go to trial T1; if RT is greater than N2 go to trail T2 etc.

That would be perfect. Could you briefly walk me through how to achieve that? Would it be based on the total reaction time over the five events, or would I have to create step-wise branching for each of the five trials?

Thanks,
Jeremy

It cannot be based on “total” RT of the five events, but instead “average” RT of the past five events. If this works for you, I’ll see if I can build a sample experiment and post it on the forums.

Average would be completely fine.

Thanks very much!
Jeremy

I have attached a sample experiment for your convenience. You might also want to create another macro to continue repeating the experiment.

Jeremy.zip (2.68 KB)