A way to export button press data using scripts without terminating stimulus?

[Emz]

Dear E-Prime people,

I would like to know if E-Prime has some capability to run a script at
any time during a task upon button press without interrupting its user-
end activities.

The problem in more detail is as follows:

I am using a variant of the N-back task and would like to precisely
log when the user presses one of the two response buttons. I know this
is easy to do using E-Prime's logging functions; however, I am
exporting data in real time to a MatLab matrix in another computer
which is necessary for my experimental set-up. The data transfer is
accomplished through a few lines of script, which I have inserted in
appropriate places in the E-Prime code to mark events of interest.
This works nicely, except for subject responses since the stimulus
needs to be shown for a fixed length of time.

I have considered a few possible solutions, but none seem very good:
- have the stimulus terminate upon response and go to the logging
script; however, this affects the task in undesirable ways
- use script to collect and output the E-Prime reaction time, correct
response info, etc. after the trial finishes. This means the reaction
time data will be desynchronized with the rest of the data file and
will require additional calculations to identify where in the data
file the button press took place. I am concerned this will introduce
error as there are already several data files with different sampling
rates to be aligned post-experiment.
- have the stimulus terminate upon response and go to the logging
script, then reappear for the remainder of the unused time, and same
for the blank screen afterward. I am attempting this solution, but it
is quite messy and round-about because the response may occur during
the stimulus presentation or during a blank screen.

Ideally, I would just need a way to execute the send script during the
stimulus presentation when the subject responds, without terminating
the activity. Any ideas if this is even possible?

Pointers / help function references, etc. all welcome,


EC


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