running sound files during presentation of directrt file

My goal is to play background sound during a directrt task. My first thought was to tell directrt to play the sound file continuously across the stimuli in each trial by assigning a 0 to the sound file time column. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to work as I got error messages and the file did not run correctly. Particularly, the sound would play, but the other stimuli in a trial would not be presented (e.g., sound with no stimuli presented). Maybe I was doing something wrong and you can offer advice on this method.

Next, I tried embedding the directrt file into medialab. I told medialab to play the background sound while running the directrt file. This worked pretty well. My only issue was that the sound file continued to play after the directrt file ended. What I want is for the sound file to stop when the directrt file is run to completion (i.e., I only want the sound file to play during the directrt session and at no other time).

Is there any way I can do this? For example, is there a way I can use the d parameter to stop the sound file when the directrt file is completed?? What makes this complex is that each participant will finish the directrt trials at different times so I want medialab/directrt to adjust to these different times and stop the sound at different points.

Yes, I think so. In MediaLab, when you return from the DirectRT session, try assigning a blank/silent soundfile as the backsound to the next ML item. In fact, MediaLab should come with a sample silence.wav file in the c:\MediaLab\utilities\sounds folder. Backsounds will always stop when ML runs into another one.

Thanks for the response. I tried what you suggested and I am still having problems. So that we can be on the same page, here's what I've done:

I created a medialab file that runs a directrt file. Specifically, in the medialab experiment editor, I selected "DirectRt" as the type and then included the appropriate filename for my excel spreadsheet. When I indicate "Type" as "DirectRt" the backsound option goes away, so I was unable to indicate a background sound at this point in programming. To make a background sound, I placed the medialab file into an "experiment" file and indicated the background sound in that file.

I included another medialab file in the experiment file and specified the silence.wav as the background sound as you suggested. Still, I run into the same problem, namely, the sound continues to play after I reach the last item of the directrt task. What's strange is that once the sound file stops playing (the sound file is five-minutes long, so after five minutes), directrt freezes and medialab won't go to the next questionnaire file.

I'm starting to think there is something wrong with my version of directRt because I've had other issues with it freezing at inappropriate times and otherwise not running correctly (e.g., trial-to-trial intervals are often variable, even though I don't program them to be that way). Thoughts? I run directrt 2008 on a Windows 7 machine. Thanks in advance for your help!

First, addressing the backsound issue--I don't know that backsounds continue until the next backsound is encountered--when the sound is entered an an experiment item. I think it needs to accompany an item [I]within a questionnaire (.que) file[/I]. Can you try that and if that works, let's then address the DirectRT issue. What release of DirectRT v2008 do you have installed on Windows 7? You might try first uninstalling and reinstalling the latest version from [URL="http://www.empirisoft.com/download.aspx"]www.empirisoft.com/download.aspx[/URL] (especially if you have a beta version.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately I'm still having problems. I installed the latest version of DirectRt (2010.2.103.1115) on my Windows 7 machine. I am also running Medialab v 2008.1.33.

When I try to run the medialb file "task.que" (see attached), I get a black screen. I attached the files I am using (minus the sound file), perhaps you can take a look. I didn't attach the sound file.

I have a strong suspicion something is up with the way directrt is running on my office pc so I attached the dxdiag file for you to look over. I've been using directrt and medialab for over seven years and have a lot of programming experience with them. I've been encountering problems that I've never encountered before.

Try it with this revision of task.csv and see if it helps. I had the same problem here and then I noticed a stray debriefing trial about 70 lines down in your input file. I tried deleting that and resaving the file. After that, it seemed to work fine.

Runs well. Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the update.