Text files

[Edward Carney]

You can also import text files into List objects.  The file should have a
first line with the names of the attributes and a line corresponding to
each level.  I've used Excel to create these and saved them as
tab-delimited text files.  (TAB is the expected delimiter for E-Prime.)

One good reason for doing things this way is that you can set up the
text/slide object and have the text placed from the relevant attribute.  I
helped program a study on memory for narrative in which entire paragraphs
were used and placed in single attributes.  I've found text placement to
be extremely accurate from slide to slide.

Don't give up if E-Studio chokes on your first attempt.  Double check the
formatting of the text file. (Word will do fine.  Set Tools/Options/View
to allow visible tabs/paras when you're editing one of these files.  It
makes the formatting obvious, especially when lines are long and organize
themselves into paragraphs.)  Make sure that there are no extra blank
lines at the end.  In my experience this doesn't usually happen in Excel,
but you never know.

Another good reason for using external text files is that you can set up
randomizations ahead of time and adjust them for various complex criteria,
instead of writing complicated code to check for these.  Use a separate
list (or E-Studio program) for each randomization.  This alone might save
you hours.

Excel permits fairly easy "pseudo-randomizing".  Enter =rand() in an
entire column and then do a sort on all the columns using the rand column
as the "sort by" column.  Make sure that you have your "Calculation" tab
in Tools/Options set to manual (use F9 to do the calculations).  Or do a
Paste Special (values) to save the values in place. Otherwise the rand()
gets recalculated all the time and you don't know where you are.  Delete
the rand() column before you save the worksheet as a TXT file (or not;
it's up to you).

Regards,
Edward Carney
Research Associate
Univ. of Minnesota

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Paul R. Jackson wrote:

> You can import words from text files, see example experiment in zip at
> www.psy.uq.edu.au/~paulj/words.zip
>
> This zip contains 'words.txt' which is a text file with a word on each line
> and 'textfile.es' which is the experiment (obviously!).
>
> This example imports them into a text screen but the import can be to
> anything really.
>
> Let me know if this doesn't make sense or doesn't work, works fine on my
> machine.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  Paul R. Jackson
>  Experimental Programmer
>
>  School of Psychology
>  University of Queensland
>  E:paulj at psy.uq.edu.au
>  P:3365-6713
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
>
>