Conditioned feedback using Direct RT (case 9375)

Hello,

I am starting to design an experiment and considering using Direct RT.
In the experiment I want to provide the participants with conditioned feedback. this means:
In each trial they have to choose between 2 options A or B (based on some learning task). I want to give them a correct/wrong feedback only for the trials that they pick the A option and never for the trials they pick the B option.

Is this possible using direct RT?
can you please send me to in the right direction (or what section in the manual will explain how can it be done?)

Thank you very much in advance,
Ayala

Hi Ayala,

DirectRT gives you a couple of options for displaying feedback based on a keypress. To see some basic examples, take a look at the files named "jumping.csv" and "skipping.csv" in the Samples > 3 - ordering trials folder. As explained in the Skipping and Jumping subsections of the Input Files section of the DirectRT manual, you can use these features to show messages after a predefined keypress. The difference between them is that skipping based on a keypress will advance to a future trial of your choice in the input file, whereas jumping will show a message but then proceed to the very next trial after the jumping option is defined.

You may also want to look at the Other Features > Require Correct Response and the Other Features > Key Press Feedback sections of the manual. You can find directions and the location of sample input files in the Samples folder of the DirectRT program files.

Hi Jason,
Thank you for your response.
Using the jump command will move the participant to a different screen where he will get the feedback (correct/incorrect).
How can I make the feedback appear on the same screen?

I want the participant to see the question, e.g is this person suitable to position A or B?
Make the decision, e.g press A
and get the feedback, e.g Correct!
all in the same screen.

Is this possible?

Thanks,
Ayala

Alaya,

Take a look at the attached file from the Samples folder that came with your copy of DirectRT; you can find it in DirectRT > Samples > 6-v2006 > gnat on your own machine wherever you installed the DirectRT program files. It is a great example of how to show feedback-in this case green O or red X-on the same screen as the stimuli based. The key to getting the feedback displayed on the same screen is using a 0 as the last of the three numbers in loc field for the green O or the jump trial 999 for the red X. Please let me know if you have any questions or trouble getting this to work in your own input file.

Hi Jason,

Thank you for your answer.
In this example correct answers get the green O on the same screen (by putting the o in clear in Loc column) but the wrong answers get the red X on a new screen (because it further them to a different trial).
I need a way for both good and bad feedback to appear on the screen while the task is still there.

Thanks,
Ayala

Alaya,
The attached files gives you one way to show both the task and the feedback on the same screen. Assuming that you have a list of stimuli for the task that you want to randomly present, we can use a combination of random stimlists, using previous stimuli, and yoking random pairs to accomplish this.

Open the input file and take a look at rows 3 and 4; each task and its feedback is based on a pair of rows, so let's just take a look at the two rows for the first stimulus. The task in row 3 is to press a key in response to the the fruit.bmp label in 3F and then randomly selects a word from the stimlist fruit (signified by $fruit in 3I). For all trials in this file, pressing the 1 key is the correct response and pressing the 2 key is the incorrect response.

To show the correct feedback of the green circle, look at columns L through W. 3L simply shows the fruit.bmp in same location of the screen. 3O uses yoking random pairs (signified by &fruit2^-1) by calling out to stimlist fruit2, which is simply a copy of the fruit stimlist. By using the fruit2 stimlist with this syntax, the program will display the same word that was randomly chosen from the fruit stimlist. The O in 3R will show up below the word. Finally, to jump to the next task in row 5, we need to end the trial in row 3 with a keypress that you can see in 3W.

If the person presses 2, you can see in cell 3K that they will jump to trial 4 and receive incorrect feedback. The presentation of the feedback stimuli is similar to that for a correct keypress except for calling on previous stimuli in 4I. The logic in that cell ensures that particpants will see whatever word was randomly selected from the fruit list in 3F.

Please let me know if you have any questions about running this input file or the logic behind it.