Place a time limit on a task?

[jarvis24]

Yes, there is a way to do this in the 2006 version. See the attached "old or new" sample task for an illustration. It gives you 30 seconds to work on a set of math problems.

How it works:

You just create a comment column called !Meta. On any given trial you can create a time-based skip contingency by entering >tr:ms in the !Meta column--where tr is the trial you want to skip to and ms is the time (in milliseconds) after which you want to go there. The time-based skip is started at the onset of that trial and is executed when the time expires. The skip will occur no matter where DirectRT is but will wait until the current trial has been completed (it will not interrupt a session mid-trial).

Say for example, you want to give a set of math problems and skip to the end, or to a different section after 30 seconds. If the end is at trial #100, then on the first trial, enter >100:30000 in the !Meta column. DirectRT will skip the subject to trial #100, after 30 seconds from the onset of the first trial.