You're absolutely right and it does seem that there are more things I can do with E-DataAid than I realized. I should have been more specific about what I had in mind, but the data conversions I run with spss syntax tend to be extensive and I was too lazy to type them out. The methods that you suggested below will really help with some of my other data sets that need less conversions, thank you. The conversions I needed to do involved generating probabilities for a bunch of different numbers (and the format of the E-DataAid file was less user friendly, but that was because of how the task was put together in E-Prime) and then some of my other datasets I create distributional plots of accuracy (or other things) by reaction time and plot between 5-9 cells of 20+ RT scores or more. So, generally I think I need to use either SPSS syntax or Matlab to do this stuff (though I am sure Excel could do it too).<div><br></div><div>I did find a fairly easy way to split after having used e-merge and then converting it to an excel document in E-Dataid. I then opened the data in excel and got rid of any columns I did not care about and then opened it in SPSS. I used the SPSS programmability extension and then installed a custom dialog called "SPSSINC_SPLIT_DATASET.spd" which you can get on the IBM spss DeveloperWorks website and it easily will split the file by whatever variables and spit out the data with any names you want. Then I just ran my script (that calculates probability, generates ACC, etc.) using "SPSSINC_PROCESS_FILES.spd" which allowed me to iterate over all subject files in a folder and spit out the data into a database. <br><br>On Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:27:06 AM UTC-5, Michiel Sovijärvi-Spapé wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0;margin-left: 0.8ex;border-left: 1px #ccc solid;padding-left: 1ex;"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Hi,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">If you’re not YET doing it, I urge you to have another look at what is possible with e-DataAid. The reason is that I know many students 1) know SPSS fairly well, and a bit of Excel, and try to avoid E-***. Not saying that counts for you as well. Indeed, this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but with such sentences as “</span>I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I like the column/row format that the Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a format I like using spss syntax<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">”, it’s difficult to avoid guessing</span>!<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> You might want to say something about what you’re planning to do, but in its absence, let’s have an example from my own life, and maybe it helps?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#1f497d"><span>·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">What I like is having a good amount of Repeated Measures ANOVA style formatted columns, say, RTs of 2x4 conditions, one row per subject. For SPSS. What I have is 500 .edats. Arggh, right?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">We merge all files to one big .emrg, which we then open in .edat</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">We filter out those RTs we are not interested in, say, the ones in which an error occurs. Also, I don’t like trials 1:20.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Now, we go to analyze, drag Subject to the Row, and any type of between-subject variable (sex, age, etc). </span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Then drag ConditionP1vs2 to columns, drag ConditionQ1vs2vs3vs4 to columns. Drag the critical RT thing to the Data bit. Press Run.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>5.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">So, we should see a nice table of at least 500x8. Oops, it’s got two decimals.. why? Make that 4. Select all of it, copy the bunch to excel.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>6.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Inside excel, underneath the two rows with variables (rows A and B), insert a new row (say C). Enter the wonderful formula =A&”_”&B and drag it all across row C.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>7.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Select row C, copy, go stand in an empty bit, paste special: values only, and transpose. Copy that, go to SPSS, paste in variables: now, that’s descriptive indeed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><span>8.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Copy all the values over to SPSS (but you’ll have to reassign string values from numeric for some columns).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">These 8 steps, lengthy as they may seem, take me about 2 minutes, and I think it’s a great workflow. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">TLDR? Try E-DataAid, it’s ridiculously simple, really rocks, and SPSS is best avoided as they make it slower and buggier with every next release. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">PS: Paul, I find Excel not at all slow with large data-files? Much faster than SPSS, at least, or at least it has been between excel 2007 and 2010 (2013 beta was running very slow here); it does not cope very well with large and lengthy formulas that need repeated recalculation and take up more than hundreds of MBs, though. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Best,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Michiel</span></p><p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"> </span></p><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> <a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="5nnfkA2AS98J">e-p...@googlegroups.com</a> [mailto:<a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="5nnfkA2AS98J">e-p...@googlegroups.<wbr>com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Daniel<br><b>Sent:</b> 11. February 2013 23:02<br><b>To:</b> <a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="5nnfkA2AS98J">e-p...@googlegroups.com</a><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: Converting an Edat file into either a .xls or .txt file</span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Yeah, I will probably just end up splitting it using a SPSS syntax script (I am not very familiar with Matlab yet), it will be a little bit tedious but faster than doing it manually.</p><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks for the input.<br><br>On Friday, February 8, 2013 6:49:09 PM UTC-5, Daniel wrote:</p><p class="MsoNormal">I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I like the column/row format that the Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a format I like using spss syntax. Is there a faster way to convert all of these subject files into the excel format, some sort of way to iterate over all files in a folder, instead of having to open each one and export them separately?</p><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks.</p><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal">-- <br>You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "E-Prime" group.<br>To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to <a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="5nnfkA2AS98J">e-prime+u...@<wbr>googlegroups.com</a>.<br>To post to this group, send email to <a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="5nnfkA2AS98J">e-p...@googlegroups.com</a>.<br>To view this discussion on the web visit <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/e-prime/-/r4EG1vCaqgIJ" target="_blank">https://groups.google.com/d/<wbr>msg/e-prime/-/r4EG1vCaqgIJ</a>.<br>For more options, visit <a href="https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out" target="_blank">https://groups.google.com/<wbr>groups/opt_out</a>.<br> <br> </p></div></div></blockquote></div>
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