Experiment Advisor Monitoring

Fri Sep 27 15:42:52 UTC 2013

If you just unplug your computer from the network while running 
E-Prime experiments (as advised in the E-Prime User's Guide), not 
only will you disable clock synchronization, you will also avoid 
other timing interferences due to network activities.

-- dkm

At 9/27/2013 11:33 AM Friday, David Vinson wrote:
>Hi Vaaal,
>
>I had some exchanges with PST support about the clock issues with 
>WinXP, here's what they told me at the time:
>
>>Windows XP sometimes causes the speed of the processor to be 
>>reported as the clock frequency. When the speed of the processor 
>>changes during an experiment, this can interfere with E-Prime's 
>>timing. Therefore, our developers have advised that some users with 
>>Windows XP may need to switch over to the power management clock. I 
>>have attached a document explaining how to make this change. Once 
>>the change has been made, E-Prime will use the power management 
>>clock on your system, which should perform much better than the 
>>default clock. Note that this involves changing your system's 
>>Boot.ini file, so we strongly recommend backing up your system 
>>before performing these actions.
>>
>>Also, you should consider turning off clock synchronization, at 
>>least while running E-Prime experiments. It should only occur 
>>occasionally, but your network might have different custom 
>>settings. Please see the following Microsoft article for more 
>>information: 
>>http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/windows_date_turn_off_synch.mspx?mfr=true. 
>>Of course, the simplest way to turn it off during an experiment is 
>>to physically unplug the cable from the computer. You should not 
>>have any other programs or processes running during the experiment 
>>anyway, so unplugging it should not cause any problems.
>
>The document mentioned in the first paragraph includes instructions 
>on how to switch the power management clock by editing boot.ini - 
>I'm sure PST support will pass that information along to you in due course.
>
>Hope this helps,
>(A different) David
>
>
>On 27/09/2013 16:24, Vaaal wrote:
>>Hi David,
>>thank you for your advice, I got it.
>>What actually concerns me is this one, since my machine in the lab 
>>run exactly Windows XP: "The E-Prime Primary Clock is configured in 
>>a way that could cause timing inconsistencies on Windows XP. 
>>Contact PST Tech Support to configure the clock for more stabilized 
>>performance when using Windows XP with this finding". I contacted 
>>the PST tech support but still no reply. In the meantime, do you 
>>have any knowledge about that? Should I install a new OS in my lab machine?
>>
>>On Friday, 27 September 2013 15:49:28 UTC+1, McFarlane, David wrote:
>>
>>     Valerio,
>>
>>     You can puzzle this out for yourself.  Try the following.  Open a
>>     blank (Professional) experiment.  Run it.  Now look at the resulting
>>     ExperimentAdvisorReport.xml.  See the Experiment Advisor Modules
>>     table?  Does it include all the same items as before, even though the
>>     experiment is completely blank?
>>
>>     Now disable some of the Experiment Advisor Modules.  E.g., back in
>>     E-Studio, open the Experiment Object Properties, go to the Experiment
>>     Advisor tab, and disable "Use of ClearAfter" and "Use of
>>     Stretch".  Run this, open the resulting ExperimentAdvisorReport.xml,
>>     and look at the Experiment Advisor Modules table.  Do you see that
>>     "An object has its ClearAfter property set to Yes..." and "A visual
>>     object has its Stretch property set to Yes..." have both disappeared?
>>
>>      From this evidence would you conclude that the Experiment Advisor
>>     Modules table tells you only what modules were enabled, and not what
>>     problems it found?  Would you find this useful, because without this
>>     information you could not tell whether the lack of a warning only
>>     meant that that test was not run?
>>
>>     As usual, do not take my word for any of this, test it out for
>>     yourself.  I presented my answer this way because I need to stress
>>     that I do not have any inside knowledge about E-Prime, I simply
>>     figure it out exactly as I outlined above.
>>
>>     Best regards,
>>     -----
>>     David McFarlane
>>     E-Prime training
>>     online: http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx
>>     <http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx>
>>     Twitter:  @EPrimeMaster (https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster
>> >     <https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster>)
>>
>>     /----
>>     Stock reminder:  1) I do not work for PST.  2) PST's trained staff
>>     take any and all questions at
>>     http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp
>>     <http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp> , and they
>>     strive to respond to all requests in 24-48 hours, so make full use of
>>     it.  3) In addition, PST offers several instructional videos on their
>>     YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/PSTNET
>> >     <http://www.youtube.com/user/PSTNET> ).  4) If you do
>>     get an answer from PST staff, please extend the courtesy of posting
>>     their reply back here for the sake of others.
>>     \----
>>
>>
>>     At 9/26/2013 05:01 PM Thursday, Vaaal wrote:
>>     >Quick question about this interesting feature of e-prime. When I
>>     >open the xml I can read several tables. Although it is clear for me
>>     >the meaning of onset to onset stats, onset delay stats, load time
>>     >stats and experiment advisor finding, the last table is a little bit
>>     >more difficult for me to understand: Experiment Advisor Modules.
>>     >I was checking this table when I notice that most of the "problem"
>>     >pointed out by this table was actually not relevant for my
>>     design. For example:
>>     >  "A visual object has its Stretch property set to Yes, which can
>>     > cause display timing anomalies. Instead of using Stretch, consider
>>     > editing the source material to match the size and proportions you
>>     > want to display during the experiment".
>>     >But no visual object in my experiment has stretch set to Yes. Or,
>>     again:
>>     >"An object has its ClearAfter property set to Yes. ClearAfter is a
>>     >deprecated property."
>>     >
>>     >This is not true for any of my object.
>>     >So, how reliable is this table?
>>     >Or maybe it just point out to POSSIBLE/LIKELY problems, without
>>     >actually telling that you are incurring in one of those?
>>     >
>>     >Thank you very much for any clarification.
>>     >Valerio
>
>--
>David Vinson, Ph.D.
>ESRC Research Fellow
>Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department
>University College London
>26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP
>Tel +44 (0)20 7679 5311  (UCL internal ext. 25311)

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