Questionnaire in E-Prime 1

[David McFarlane]

Ben,

>I use two keyboards because the first one is just for data logging, it
>accepts 1,2,3,4 as input. The second one only accepts space and is
>used for termination. The subject may press any number for one time,
>every trial it has to decide how many answers are correct ranging from
>zero correct answers two four. Afterwards it has to press the spacebar
>to proceed. So one could press just the spacebar or 1,2,3,4 and space.
>
>If I set the EndAction of the first keyboard to (none), the EndAction
>of the second keyboard to terminate and set MaxCount of the first
>keyboard to four, it terminates after the first number anyway.

Ah, THAT'S where I made my mistake.  I thought you had two separate 
physical keyboards, each plugged in to a separate USB port, etc., and 
the subject pressed keys on one keyboard for the answers, then 
pressed the space bar on the second keyboard to continue.  That would 
have been a very odd setup.  Now I see that you meant two E-Prime 
Keyboard objects as part of the Input Mask of your EP response object.  Sorry.

Now I see some problems, and will propose a solution.  If you don't 
care about my explanation, just skip down to my final solution.

I tried this myself, set one Keyboard to Allow keys 1234, Max Count 
4, End Action (none), and set a second Keyboard to Allow {SPACE} with 
End Action Terminate.  Everything worked fine as long as I did not 
press more than 3 number keys (and as a side effect, my E-DataAid 
file only showed the final {SPACE} as the response).  But once I 
pressed a fourth key the program hung and I had to <ctrl><alt><shift> to abort.

Here is what happens:  Once the response object gets the fourth key, 
it performs its end action.  That action is "none".  So, the program 
does exactly what you told it to do, you press 4 keys and after that 
it continues to do absolutely nothing, and there is no way to break 
out of that.

Here is a cheap fix:  Increase the Max Count of the first keyboard to 
5.  Now its end action does not trigger until you press 5 keys, so it 
is safe to press 4 keys.  Of course, if someone presses 5 keys then 
it will hang again.  So increase the Max Count to 10, or whatever, 
just for safety's sake.

But I think we are making this all a bit too complicated, and E-Prime 
has a better way.  So here is my final solution.

Use just one keyboard input mask, Allow 1234{SPACE}, End Action 
Terminate, Max Count 5 (or 4), and Termination Response {SPACE}.  Now 
this one keyboard object will allow the subject to press up to 4 keys 
plus a {SPACE}, and will terminate the object when the subject 
presses the space bar or presses a fifth key (presumably, four 
numbers plus a {SPACE}).  If you instead set Max Count to 4, then the 
the object will terminate after the fourth key press without making 
the subject press {SPACE}, and will ensure that they only enter four 
keys.  Finally, *all* these responses will appear as one string in 
the E-DataAid file.

This was a nice little puzzle, and I thank you for it.
-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder


>On 26 Sep., 10:18, David McFarlane <mcfar... at msu.edu> wrote:
> > Ben,
> >
> > >It is part of a lager test batterie. I am validating a picture anomaly
> > >test which should measure the social cognition abilities of TLE
> > >patients and I got in total four different tests. It would be nice to
> > >presented them all with one program.
> >
> > Thanks, just wondered, that makes sense.  Moving on...
> >
> > Now I wonder why you use two separate keyboards, one for the numbers
> > and one for the space bar.  Surely a single keyboard would have both
> > numbers and a space bar, so you could do all this with one
> > keyboard.  But let's leave that aside.
> >
> > Next, the subject presses either two keys (a number plus {SPACE}) or
> > just one key ({SPACE}) to continue.  I assume you do this with the
> > Advanced input mask features, by setting MaxCount to 2
> > (Disclaimer:  I have never used this feature myself, so I am
> > stretching here).  If you did not also set Termination Response to
> > {SPACE}, then the subject must *always* press two keys to continue,
> > i.e., if they press just {SPACE} then the questionaire will not
> > continue (although it would if they pressed {SPACE} twice, give 
> that a try).
> >
> > So, you might try setting Termination Response to {SPACE}.
> >
> > That said, is there any reason they must press a number key plus the
> > {SPACE}?  Why not continue as soon as they press the number
> > key?  What have I missed?
> >
> > -- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
> >
> > >On 25 Sep., 16:50, David McFarlane <mcfar... at msu.edu> wrote:
> > > > Ben,
> >
> > > > >I would like to implement a questionnaire in E-Prime, but I 
> got stuck. The
> > > > >subject has to choose zero or five answers and then proceed 
> to the next
> > > > >part. The instructions say that the subject should press the 
> corresponding
> > > > >numbers and then space or if none of the answers is correct 
> immediately
> > > > >press space. I used a text-display and added two keyboards 
> as input device
> > > > >- one for the numbers and one for the space button to terminate. My
> > > > >problem is that e-prime just stucks and does not react when 
> pressing the
> > > > >spacebar.
> >
> > > > Just curious -- any particular reason why you want to do this
> > > > questionnaire in E-Prime instead of something simpler (like MediaLab,
> > > > or even HTML)?
> >
> > > > -- David McFarlane


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