Rhythm Task

Hi,

Is there a way to capture keypresses for a rhythm task? I will be playing sound files to participants while they have to tap on a certain key with the rhythm. I have used DirectRT for other experiments but this particular task seems much more difficult to implement.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Akr.

How much time and how many taps are we talking about?

I was thinking about collecting taps for the entire length of the sound file (about 6-10 seconds) and then continuing to collect taps even after the file is over. I want subjects to continue tapping as long as they feel they can accurately remember the rhythm. When the subjects are done, the experiment should play them the next sound file.

After browsing through the forum, I figured that InputRT may be a good way to do this task, as it allows you to launch another program along with it. Currently, I have InputRT launch windows media player along with the sound file I want to be played. It looks like InputRT starts monitoring keystrokes as soon as the file starts to play so it works well. Subjects press Alt-Esc when they're done, after which I manually start the next file.

Is there a way to do this from within DirectRT or MediaLab allowing me to start and stop InputRt and making the process much more streamlined? I tried to do it but wasn't able to get the sound file to start at the same moment that the inputRT starts monitoring keystrokes.

Thanks,

Anil.

If you would expect less than 99 taps per trial (sound file) then you could just allow for 99 RTs per trial. For each RT you could allow for a skip out if the subject were to press an alternate key like ENTER or some such. Would this be a possibility for you?

That could definitely be a possibility. How exactly would you program this into DirectRT. Also, is it possible to allow for more RTs per trial or is 99 a limit.

Thanks,

Anil.

99 is the limit, I believe.

Say the tap key is the spacebar (code = 57) and ENTER (code = 28) is the exit key.

You could just repeat this over and over:

stim|loc|trial
~|0,0,0|rt:57,28>2

Where this is trial 1 and pressing the ENTER key would take you out to trial 2.

Does that make sense?

I tried it and it works but I think I'll go the InputRT way. The main problem is that many subjects feel like they can continue to tap even after 99 rts. I think this would be a good feature to add to DirectRt in the future where the number of stims per trial could be increased.

Thanks,

Anil.

I guess you could also just insert an adjacent trial with another 99 taps permitted. Just use a trial interval of 50ms or so to make them appear seamless. Regardless of which trial they stop on, you could have them skipped to the same place.