The two rows in the log output file correspond to the two main parts of each row of the input file. The first row for each trial shows the relevant information about displaying the "get ready" instruction and pressing the space bar in response to that stimulus. The "x.01" in the "order" column and the "get ready" in the "Stim" column show that the "get ready" stimulus was indeed displayed first for each trial.
The most important information for this first part of each trial is from your original question about how you can be sure if a participant pressed the space bar at the start of each trial. We need three columns to show that: the "SPACE" value in the "Name" column" shows that the space bar is what is supposed to be pressed (remember the rt:57 in the input file), the "TRUE" in the "Correct" column confirms that the space bar was pressed, and the value in the "RT" column tells you how long it took to press the space bar from the when the "get ready" message first appeared.
The second row for each trial shows what happened for the second part of each of trial; this is reflected in the "x.02" value in the "Order" column. Here, we want to know that the participant started with the space bar pressed, saw a stimulus asking for a key press, that the participant released the space bar, pressed a key, and what key was pressed, if it was correct, and how fast it was pressed. Here is a breakdown of where to find this information:
1) Start with space bar pressed > this is not directly recorded in the data file, but is reflected in the difference between the numbers in the "Release" and "RT" columns. The bigger the difference between these two numbers is how long it took to press a key after letting go of the space bar. DirectRT doesn't accept a key press until the space bar is released; go ahead and give it a try for yourself and notice the corresponding difference in the values in these two columns.
2) Saw a stimulus asking for a key press > this is the value in the "Stim" column of these rows.
3) The participant released the space bar > this is the value in the "Release" column. This is the number of milliseconds that passed between the presentation of the stimulus asking for a key press and when the participant let go of the space bar that they pressed for the first part of the trial. Because the first part of each trial asks for the participant to press a space bar, that is why you see a value of 0 for each of the rows with "x.01" in the "Order" column.
4) What key was pressed > this is the value in the "Name" column. You can see that I pressed the INSERT key for every trial.
5) Was the key pressed correct > this is the value in the "Correct" column. If it is TRUE, the correct key was pressed.
6) How fast it was pressed > this is the value of the RT column. It shows the number of milliseconds that passed between the presentation of the stimulus for this second part of the trial and when the key was pressed. As I said in 1 above, the difference between this value and the value of the "Release" cell in the same row lets you know the number of milliseconds between when the space bar was pressed and the next key that was pressed.
That should give you all of the information that you need for the core parts of this task. If you need information about the other columns, take a look at the Output Files > Log Files _ More Data! section of the DirectRT manual.
Jason Reed
Empirisoft Software Support Specialist