Make A Stimulus' Appearance Contingent on Past Responses in Version 2012 (case 27350)

[bch13]

I have been working with DirectRT Version 2012 on a reaction time experiment. This experiment consists of several blocks of trials. I want to create a stimulus that will appear at the end of a block ONLY if the participant has made a correct response for each trial in that block. For example in a block with 3 trials, I want a stimulus to appear at the end of the block only if the participant has made the correct response on all three of the trials. If the participant made an incorrect response on any of the three trials within the block, the stimulus would not appear at the end of that block and the participant would instead move directly onto the next block.

I saw that in older versions of DirectRT this kind of skipping was not possible, but am wondering if the 2012 version of the program is capable of skipping a stimulus based on responses from past trials.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

** NOTE: For my experiment the "correct" response is to respond within a given period of time and the "incorrect" response is to not respond fast enough ***

[jason_reed]

You could use skipping for the response to each of the trials in the block. In your example with the three trials, you could set up a skip pattern like this:

Trial 1

• Correct response = skip to trial 2 of that block
• Incorrect response = skip to a subsequent trial outside of this block of trial

Trial 2

• Correct response = skip to trial 3 of that block
• Incorrect response = skip to a subsequent trial outside of this block of trial

Trial 3

• Correct response = skip to trial of that block that would only show up for 3 correct responses
• Incorrect response = skip to a subsequent trial outside of this block of trial

Trial that would only show up for 3 correct responses

• any response would lead to the next trial in the .csv input file (may not require skipping)

Let me know if you have any other questions about the idea here or how to program it in a .csv input file.

[bch13]

Thank you, but will this work if I still want participants to go through every trial in the block? For example, if they get trial 1 incorrect in a block of three trials, I still want them to do trials 2 and 3, I just don't want them to experience the "reward" stimulus at the end of trial 3. The experiment also requires participants to go through several blocks in one session, will this work with your suggestion?

Thank you very much!

[jason_reed]

Skipping only works with the responses made in whatever single trial is currently being run in a DirectRT session. DirectRT cannot skip or jump based on the input of more than one trial and can only jump to trials that have yet to be presented in the .csv input file (i.e., you cannot jump or skip to previously presented trials).

To direct participants based on their input to certain trials, you would need to program each and every possible combination of responses and program them into your .csv input file.