Mental Math Task

Hello,

I am trying to design a study and am not sure how to do it in either medialab or direct rt or both. Here is the idea:

10 math questions.

P is shown an equation and told they must press the spacebar (or any key really) to bring up a box to answer it. If they do not press the spacebar in 10 secs the answer to the question will appear on the screen, but they still can press the spacebar and select the correct answer.

They must answer the question correctly, if not, they repeat the question in the same process as above until they get it right.

Basically I am interested in whether they got the question right and whether they waited until the answer appeared on the screen before providing their answer.

I realize this is confusing, but I hope it gets the gist across. Please let me know if any clarification is needed.

Hm. To complete this task, your best bet may be to use DirectRT. DirectRT would allow for the equation to first be displayed. Just as you've noted, you can assign a key to bring up an answer box. If the user doesn't do so, the software can move to the next screen, which will display both the equation and the answer to the equation. From here, the user can press the 'response' key to bring up the pop-up textbox.

It is recommended that you go through each sample within the DirectRT samples folder to gain a better handle on how DirectRT works. Here's a few links that will provide you with functionality information that this experiment would most likely use:
Open Ended Responses - [URL]http://www.empirisoft.com/directrt/help/directrt_samples_of01_open_ended_responses.htm[/URL]
Skipping - [URL]http://www.empirisoft.com/directrt/help/directrt_skipping.htm[/URL]
Jumping - [URL]http://www.empirisoft.com/directrt/help/directrt_jumping.htm[/URL]

DirectRT Help Manual: [URL]http://www.empirisoft.com/directrt/help/index.html[/URL]

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or if I can help in any way. Feel free to ask for help with coding any experiments you're working on as well.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I figured out how to do the first part of this task a little while ago. I used Direct RT. Basically, it does exactly as I want it to, to a point.

It loads the equation (call this screen #1). Then the P can press the spacebar to bring up an answer box. If they don't do that in 10 secs the answer appears on the screen (call this screen #2). They then have all the time they want to press the spacebar and answer the question.

That's fine. What i am having trouble with is the second requirement of the task. I want to be able to program it so that if they type in the incorrect answer (after bringing up the answer box on either screen) it reloads screen #1 and the process starts over again.

Basically, it is a task to see if people cheat. And if they don't wait for the answer to come up the first time, will they wait for it the second time, or third time, etc. after they enter an incorrect response. Does this make sense?