Data files storing as voice - no voice recording (case 2954)

Hello! I have data files that are supposed to record participants' responses on the keyboard. I have collected data from 155 participants and about 20 of the data files have been stored in a "Voice" folder and the data file is empty. The remaining 135 data files have been saved appropriately.

I am using 3 different computers and have 32 different counterbalancing conditions that were all built off of one main file. The problem appears to be occurring randomly because it is occurring in various data conditions on various computers. Additionally, sometimes it will record as Voice and then the next time we run that same condition on that same computer it will save regularly.

Do you have any ideas on how to prevent this from happening? Thanks!

Hi jkl,

Let me see if I can help you stop this from happening; any loss of data is definitely something we don't want to see.

The Voice folder should only be created if you have a Voice Response Item in a questionnaire file. Is there Voice item in the questionnaire files of your study or any other study using MediaLab on the computers?

Psychboiler

Hi jkl,

What's most puzzling is that this is happening on different computers and in different conditions.

Psychboiler's suggestion is a good one, and double checking your questionnaires and experiments for proper structure is definitely the place to start

If you are intending to record a voice response and that item is present, it might also be helpful to see if there is anything about the 20 participants who do not have voice data but should have in common. Perhaps they are all giving a response or a combination or responses that is causing there to be an error in how the questionnaire/experiment is being administered. We can hope that what appears random will actually have some pattern emerge.

Hi. I agree with what others have said about this issue. Assuming that you never meant for your participants to provide vocal responses, the easiest thing to do is to simply review each .que file on each computer, check the Item Type column for instances of "Voice Response".

Making sure that option is not specified will indicate that there could be a problem with MediaLab.

If you know that no Voice Response option is specified in any of the files you are using on each of the machines that you are using, then I recommend that you share one of files with the group, so we can review for clues.