Setting time limit for open-ended responses (case 12651)

[jason_reed]

Rachael,


You are spot on with your read on DirectRT's features. You could use the !meta column placed between the trial and bgr columns of your input file to tell DirectRT to jump to a particular trial after a certain number of milliseconds have passed in the current trial. If you wanted DirectRT to move to the adjacent trial, you could just use the automatic continuation feature of the DirectRT Styles file. Just put 0-xxxx!,where xxxx is the maximum number of milliseconds you want for that trial-in the MinMax field of the row your Styles file that corresponds to the style code for the trial in your input file with the open-ended response. You can also just put the Styles file in the same folder as the DirectRT input file if you wanted to create one specific to that input file.

[Rachel Ralston]

Great, the method is working as you've outlined it -- thank you! However, what I want it to do is to interrupt the current trial when the time limit expires (i.e., whether or not the participant has filled in the open-ended response yet). It does not appear that the MinMax setting or !meta command allows this to happen. In fact, in the manual it expressly says that it doesn't: "Note that the time-based skip is started at the onset of the trial from which it is called 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)."

Is there a work-around to this, i.e., a way to have DirectRT interrupt the session mid-trial and move on to the next trial (or session, if that's how I'll need to organize it)? It's not critical that we have this portion time-constrained in this fashion, but if there is a work-around I'd love to incorporate it.

[jason_reed]

Could you please upload an example input file so that I can see one or two of these trials in which you want to interrupt the text response portion?

[Rachel Ralston]

Absolutely. Attached is the file I've been working with.
withmetaWFC_MSoriginal.csv

[jason_reed]

Unfortunately, DirectRT doesn't have a feature that allows for the timed interruption of open ended responses before participants press the Enter key. This is because DirectRT passes control to Windows and it cannot intervene until the text box is closed and control returns to DirectRT.

[Rachel Ralston]

Unfortunately, DirectRT doesn't have a feature that allows for the timed interruption of open ended responses before participants press the Enter key. This is because DirectRT passes control to Windows and it cannot intervene until the text box is closed and control returns to DirectRT.

OK, that makes sense. Thanks so much for your help!

[jason_reed]

My pleasure. Please let us know if you have any questions in the future.