auditory secondary task

Tue Apr 20 14:33:06 UTC 2010

I just took a look at PST's DualTask example 
myself. It essentially runs a task within a task, 
i.e., secondary List/Proc stimuli within a 
primary (and static) List/Proc stimulus, with 
stimuli overlaid by means of TextDisplay Frame attributes.

(Also note that their code contains yet another 
example of poor programming practice.  The CheckTime inline uses the line

If Clock.Read >= LngEndTime OR LngEndTime-Clock.Read <= 500 Then

First, it is poor practice to use Clock.Read more 
than once in a logical test, since technically it 
will have a different value for each test; best 
to store Clock.Read to an intermediate variable 
and then test with that variable.  Then of course 
(LngEndTime-Clock.Read <= 500) is logically 
equivalent to (Clock.Read >= LngEndTime-500), and 
whenever (Clock.Read >= LngEndTime-500) then it 
is also true that (Clock.Read >= 
LngEndTime).  Thus the two tests are superfluous, 
and that line should be reduced to simply

If Clock.Read >= LngEndTime - 500 Then

which solves both issues.  In general, keep a 
wary eye out when looking at PST examples, they 
are rife with poor programming practices and mistakes.)

-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder

>Antonello,
>
>Sounds like you want to run some kind of a "dual 
>task" experiment.  We had a thread about this 
>toward the end of last year, please take a look 
>at 
>http://groups.google.com/group/e-prime/browse_thread/thread/360a5c54d63ae241 
>.  You might also try a search using "dual 
>task", and the Dual Task example downloadable from the PST web site.
>
>-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
>
>
>>Yes, I'm very new! Thanks for all your suggestions! My difficult was
>>to beep in a random mode while the text was present!
>>I will try to follow your suggestions!
>>Best regards
>>Antonello Puglia
>>
>>(PhD student in Cognitive Psychology, University of Chieti-Pescara,
>>Italy)
>>
>>On 20 Apr, 14:12, Michiel Spape <Michiel.Sp... at nottingham.ac.uk>
>>wrote:
>> > Hi Antonello,
>> > How new are you to E-Prime? If the answer is 
>> "very new", I will predict you'll have quite 
>> some difficulty getting this to work - indeed, 
>> how you seem to suggest you would like to do 
>> this suggests this may well be the case. That 
>> is, E-Prime slightly forces you to do things 
>> in a time-locked (to use an ERP term) manner: 
>> read single word, detect response to task1, 
>> detect respond to task 2, is quite easy, but 
>> 'go on reading while detecting single 
>> responses continuously'... not so much. That 
>> said, if you'd have a single slide with, say, 
>> a page of text and a sound stimulus on it, you 
>> can collect multiple responses (in advanced 
>> properties of responses/timing tab). Then, 
>> you'd have to code stuff so that the response 
>> times of these responses are all recorded.
>> > It occurs to me, however, you might be able 
>> to do it in a less complex way (even if it will look a bit ugly):
>> > Make a list for your trials (say TrialList). 
>> Code at least ALL text you want your subject 
>> to read (might well be a page? Use \n for new 
>> lines) as an attribute (say myStory) such that 
>> each trial has something else to read. Let the 
>> procedure within that TrialList refer to 
>> another list (say SubTrialList) with at least 
>> one attribute, say mySoundfile. Record both 
>> empty and non-empty soundfiles (for timing 
>> purposes), say "empty.wav" and "beep.wav" and 
>> fill your SubTrialList with these two. Now, if 
>> you want a single trial to have, say, 20 beeps 
>> and 80 silences, each of 1 second long (or 10 
>> ms beep and 990 ms silence), just have 
>> [mySoundfile] refer to 20 beeps and 80 
>> silences. For each SubTrialList level, use the 
>> same procedure, with, in it, at least one (or 
>> two, if you want to record whether subjects 
>> press a button BEFORE the onset of the 
>> stimulus) slide. The slide then has text 
>> [myStory] and sound [mySoundfile]. As said, 
>> it's probably best to have another, but 
>> similar slide before this slide, such that you 
>> can collect responses that precede the sound 
>> (anticipatory responses). This has, as a 
>> benefit, that you can thereby randomise the 
>> duration of the intervals between beeps.
>> >
>> > Oh, and try to be a bit more specific in 
>> your question: where did you get stuck? Unless 
>> you prefer someone actually to make your 
>> experiment - might be a bit more expensive though.
>> > Best,
>> > Mich
>> >
>> > Michiel Spapé
>> > Research Fellow
>> > Perception & Action group
>> > University of Nottingham
>> > School of Psychology
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: e-prime at googlegroups.com 
>> [mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Antonello
>> > Sent: 20 April 2010 08:39
>> > To: E-Prime
>> > Subject: auditory secondary task
>> >
>> > Hi, I'm new in using E-prime. I want to create that:
>> >
>> > While the participants read a narrative text, they are involved in
>> > detecting pure tone (presented in a random time manner) in a secondary
>> > task. How can I do that? I am interested in record either reaction
>> > times about the secondary task either in record reading duration time.
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance
>> >
>> > Antonello

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