A server-side program for delivering experiments with animations

A server-side program for animation experiments is presented. The program is capable of delivering an experiment composed of discrete animation sequences in various file formats, collecting a discrete or continuous response from the observer, evaluating the appropriateness of the response, and ensuring that the user is not proceeding at an unreasonable rate. Most parameters of the program are controllable by experimenter-edited text files or simple switches in the program code, thereby minimizing the need for programming to create new experiments. A simple demonstration experiment is discussed and is freely available.     

A text-stimuli presentation manager for the IBM PC with ipsatization correction for response sets and reaction times

IPSAPRO, an ipsative scoring program written for the IBM PC, aids in the detection and transformation of response sets that often contaminate rating scale and reaction time experiments. Response sets such as the tendency to use only extreme points of a rating scale or to work for speed over accuracy in reaction time experiments are removed in IPSAPRO by standardizing each subject’s ratings or times against their own means and standard deviations. Ipsatization can be applied to existing data sets or take place automatically at the data collection stage in a text-stimuli presentation manager that is provided with the program.     

Systematic changes in perceptual reactance induced by physical fitness training

The effect of life-change events on perceptual augmentation-reduction was studied in 72 subjects (40 men, 32 women). In three experiments the kinesthetic figural aftereffect was measured prior to and after either a physical fitness program, a course in yoga, or training in Transcendental Meditation. Each program lasted a minimum of 8 wk. Subjects completing fitness training, all of whom were initially classified as augmenters, became reducers by the end of their program. Subjects enrolled in yoga and meditation courses remained relatively stable in their perceptual tendencies.     

Time-sharing SKED and OS/8: A new version

A new time-sharing SKED program has been developed to simultaneously conduct up to 12 behavioral experiments while the OS/8 operating system is used in the “background.” The new system provides improved control over the SKED program while allowing the experimenter to develop new programs or analyze data during the experimental session. A minimum of 16K of memory and an OS/8 device is required to use this system.     

Using PsyScope for demonstrations and student-designed experiments in cognitive psychology courses

We describe a plan for integrating an experimental control language, PsyScope, into under-graduate laboratory exercises of perceptual and cognitive experiments on Macintosh computers. PsyScope is a powerful and versatile system with which students can modify standard research paradigms and execute experiments of their own design, thus facilitating student-initiated independent research. Data are summarized with a general-purpose program, PsySquash, for import into Statview or SuperAnova for further analysis. This system provides an effective means of implementing student projects.     

Mix, a program for pseudorandomization

In psychological experiments involving multiple trials, the order in which individual trials are presented to participants influences the results obtained. For this reason, experimenters often create carefully constrained experimental lists or check randomly generated lists to avoid known causes of order artifacts (e.g., short-term stimulus or response repetition). Creating appropriately structured pseudorandom lists can be a difficult and time-consuming task in generating psychological experiments. Mix is a Windows program that can generate pseudorandomized orders according to complex, user-specified constraints. Mix can be used to generate a novel item order for each individual participant, even for complex experiments in which stimulus and/or response repetition is an experimental variable of interest, or for which automated randomization would not normally be possible. The program also contains a number of other practical features for generating files for use with a variety of experiment control software. A Mix executable for Windows, a complete manual, and terms of use are available at www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/maarten.van-casteren/Mix.htm. Use is limited to academic or other nonprofit applications.     

EYE LINES: A tool for studying visual perception of size and angle

EYE LINES is a set of programs for preparing and running experiments that measure the perception of the size, position, or angle of orientation of visual stimuli. A drawing program builds images as collections of linked line-segment vectors. The experiments involve the method of adjustment. Subjects use a mouse to adjust the lengths or angles of specified line segments. Designed for use both in research and instructional laboratories, the programs run on the Macintosh.     

A multi-purpose logic module for behavioral experiments

A notational system has been developed that can be used to describe most reinforcement schedules or other sequential procedures by appropriately interconnecting the basic notational units. The notational language has been applied in the past to develop a user-oriented computer program for behavioral experiments. The present paper describes a digital logic module designed to be isomorphic with the basic unit of the notational language, thus permitting rapid programming of new experiments directly from the notational system. The major advantage of the new module is that it requires no electronic sophistication on the part of the user, since the one module serves as the basic unit of all experiments.     

The Functional Measurement Experiment Builder suite: Two Java-based programs to generate and run functional measurement experiments

We propose a free, easy-to-use computer program that does not requires prior knowledge of computer programming to generate and run experiments using textual or pictorial stimuli. Although the FM Experiment Builder suite was initially programmed for building and conducting FM experiments, it can also be applied for non-FM experiments that necessitate randomized, single, or multifactorial designs. The program is highly configurable, allowing multilingual use and a wide range of different response formats. The outputs of the experiments are Microsoft Excel compatible .xls files that allow easy copy-paste of the results into Weiss's FM CalSTAT program (2006) or any other statistical package. Its Java-based structure is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems, and its compactness (< 1 MB) makes it easily distributable over the Internet.     

A system for programming experiments and for recording and analyzing data automatically

A system designed for use in complex operant conditioning experiments is described. Some of its key features are: (a) plugboards that permit the experimenter to change either from one program to another or from one analysis to another in less than a minute, (b) time-sharing of permanently-wired, electronic logic components, (c) recordings suitable for automatic analyses. Included are flow diagrams of the system and sample logic diagrams for programming experiments and for analyzing data.     

Picture Perception Lab: A program for picture perception experiments on the Macintosh II

Picture Perception Lab (PPL) is a program for picture perception experiments. PPL capitalizes on the sophisticated drawing software available for the Macintosh computer by allowing the user to create stimulus images by using almost any drawing package. Through a series of user-friendly dialog boxes, PPL enables even nonprogrammers to develop, quickly and easily, tachistoscopelike vision experiments. The program allows a wide variety of experimental designs. Image exposure durations and subjects’ reaction times are precisely monitored with millisecond timing functions. Each image is drawn on the screen in a single 60-Hz refresh.     

Computer production of punched paper tapes for controlling experiments

Controlling experiments with paper-tape readers often requires the production of complex paper tapes. A program was written to allow automatic production and checking of complex punched paper tapes using a small computer. The user first defines the punches or punch sets to be used. He then specifies, for each successive block of tape to be punched, the number of punch sets of each type to occur and whether those punch sets should be copied in order or automatically randomized. The specified tape is then produced using a two-pass procedure, after which the tape may be automatically checked for punching errors if desired. The program has facilities for retention or modification of user commands from previous runs, simplifying the production of a large number of tapes with similar characteristics.     

A minicomputer program for the resolution of response frequency and latency in classical conditioning preparations

This classical conditioning program is capable of controlling stimulus events and recording response data in experiments using the rabbit’s nictitating membrane and/or iaw-movement responses. The main features of the program, implemented on the PDP·12 computer, are the ability to resolve response latency within a 1 msec error range and to display the response topography on the computer’s cathode ray tube. The extreme accuracy in latency measurement cannot be duplicated either by conventional hand-scoring methods involving oscillographic records or by other minicomputer conditioning programs.     

An automated system for primate instruction for behavioral neurophysiology

This paper describes a flexible hardware/software system developed for use with a PDP-8I computer for conducting research in behavioral neurophysiology. A real time monitor was designed to facilitate development, debugging, and modification of programs to run experiments. It relieves the programmer of the burden of dealing with hardware dependent functions such as interrupt handling and input/output. In addition, it provides the user with a large library of callable routines to perform functions commonly needed for conducting experiments. The monitor is modular in design and could be expanded or modified for use with many configurations of the PDP-8 family of computers.     

Match: A program to assist in matching the conditions of factorial experiments

In most experiments that involve between-subjects or between-items factorial designs, the items and/or the participants in the various experimental groups differ on one or more variables, but need to be matched on all other factors that can affect the outcome measure. Matching large groups of items or participants on multiple dimensions is a difficult and time-consuming task, yet failure to match conditions will lead to suboptimal experiments. We describe a computer program, "Match", that automates this process by selecting the best-matching items from larger sets of candidate items. In most cases, the program produces near-optimal solutions in amatter of minutes and selects matches that are typically superior to those obtained using hand matching or other semiautomated processes. We report the results of a case study in which Match was used to generate matched sets of experimental items (words varying in length and frequency) for a published study on language processing. The program was able to come up with better-matching item sets than those hand-selected by the authors of the original study, and in a fraction of the time originally taken up with stimulus matching.     

Object relocation: a program for setting up, running, and analyzing experiments on memory for object locations

Object Relocation is a computer program for Windows 95, with which experiments on spatial memory for object locations can be designed, run, and analyzed. Because of its clear graphical user interface, no long and complex command syntax is needed. Basically, a stimulus consists of a frame that contains a chosen number of locations (i.e., the actual spatial layout) to which objects can be assigned. When the experiment is run, these stimuli are presented to the subject for a variable period of time. Subsequently (either with or without a delay), the objects are presented in a row above the frame and have to be relocated to the correct positions. Finally, the raw data can be analyzed efficiently, using various error scores, and an SPSS-ready output file can be produced. Object Relocation is a very flexible program: New objects and positions can easily be added, and various options for presentation and relocation are present.     

WordGen: a tool for word selection and nonword generation in Dutch, English, German, and French.

WordGen is an easy-to-use program that uses the CELEX and Lexique lexical databases for word selection and nonword generation in Dutch, English, German, and French. Items can be generated in these four languages, specifying any combination of seven linguistic constraints: number of letters, neighborhood size, frequency, summated position-nonspecific bigram frequency, minimum position-nonspecific bigram f requency, position-specific frequency of the initial and final bigram, and orthographic relatedness. The program also has a module to calculate the respective values of these variables for items that have already been constructed, either with the program or taken from earlier studies. Stimulus queries can be entered through WordGen's graphical user interface or by means of batch files. WordGen is especially useful for (1) Dutch and German item generation, because no such stimulus-selection tool exists for these languages, (2) the generation of nonwords for all four languages, because our program has some important advantages over previous nonword generation approaches, and (3) psycholinguistic experiments on bilingualism, because the possibility of using the same tool for different languages increases the cross-linguistic comparability of the generated item lists. WordGen is free and available at http://expsy.ugent.be/wordgen.htm.     

Correspondence programs for smoking cessation and weight control: a comparison of two strategies in the Minnesota Heart Health Program

Mailed invitations to participate in weight loss and/or smoking cessation correspondence programs to 31,400 households in a suburban community. Two programs were offered to randomized subsets of households, a 6-month correspondence program costing +5 and the same program for free but requiring a +60 deposit to be refunded based on success in weight loss or smoking cessation. Overall, sign-up included 1,304 people for weight loss and 142 for smoking cessation. The +5 program was about 5 times as popular as the incentive program. Validated weight change after 6 months averaged about 4 lb for the +5 program and 8 lb for the incentive program. Corresponding rates of smoking cessation were about 9% and 20%, respectively. We conclude that correspondence programs for the promotion of weight control and smoking cessation are potentially cost-effective methods for reaching individuals in the community at large, many of whom would not be interested in clinic-based programs. Issues meriting further research include recruitment, especially of smokers, and evaluation of the relative trade-offs in recruitment success versus efficacy of differing treatment approaches.