Millisecond Forums

READSPAN glitch

https://forums.millisecond.com/Topic35625.aspx

By LSResearcher - 9/12/2023

Greetings again, in our lab we have been running a study which involves going through OSPAN, then SYMSPAN, and then READSPAN.

In each case, at the end of the task, participants see a white screen, click through to view their scores, and then click again to open up a tab (we set the Final Page to redirect them to a specific URL).

In OSPAN and SYMSPAN everything works fine, but we have now repeatedly had -- on multiple different computers -- the following problem with READSPAN: at the white screen just before participants are to click to view their scores (they supposedly can click anywhere on the screen), no amount of clicking will do anything.  READSPAN will not advance.  Pressing the spacebar will do the trick, and after that the only to advance further (close the score screen, go to the redirect to webpage) only the spacebar will work.

Is there any reason why the computer mouse is no longer effective at that point?  We have run several dozen participants and they have all encountered this problem.  Thanks for any help!
By Dave - 9/12/2023

LSResearcher - 9/12/2023
Greetings again, in our lab we have been running a study which involves going through OSPAN, then SYMSPAN, and then READSPAN.

In each case, at the end of the task, participants see a white screen, click through to view their scores, and then click again to open up a tab (we set the Final Page to redirect them to a specific URL).

In OSPAN and SYMSPAN everything works fine, but we have now repeatedly had -- on multiple different computers -- the following problem with READSPAN: at the white screen just before participants are to click to view their scores (they supposedly can click anywhere on the screen), no amount of clicking will do anything.  READSPAN will not advance.  Pressing the spacebar will do the trick, and after that the only to advance further (close the score screen, go to the redirect to webpage) only the spacebar will work.

Is there any reason why the computer mouse is no longer effective at that point?  We have run several dozen participants and they have all encountered this problem.  Thanks for any help!

It's what the code is supposed to do per its /pretrialsignal and /pottrialsignal settings.

<trial score_report>
/ stimulusframes = [1=scorereport]
/ pretrialsignal = (keyboard, 57)
/ validresponse = (lbuttondown)
/ posttrialsignal = (keyboard, 57)
/ recorddata = false
</trial>


It expects you to press SPACE on the keyboard before you get to see the scores (per /pretrialsignal); then after having clicked the scores away, it again expects you to press SPACE to end the trial (per /posttrialsignal).

https://www.millisecond.com/support/docs/v5/html/language/attributes/pretrialsignal.htm
https://www.millisecond.com/support/docs/v5/html/language/attributes/posttrialsignal.htm

If you don't want that, remove these  two attributes.

These tasks were originally designed for in-lab use (i.e. under experimenter supervision), and scores are principally meant for experimenter eyes only and subjects aren't supposed to get out of the task (to prevent them from, e.g. accidentally changing the lab computers' settings, etc.). This is why there's this somewhat unintuitive and convoluted way to get to the score screen and end it. The WM tasks as originally devised by Engle et al. and on which the Inquisit implementations are based all worked along those lines, i.e. providing no obvious (to subjects) way to get to the scores and/or get out of the task.
By LSResearcher - 9/12/2023

Understood and thank you very much for the fast reply!

By LSResearcher - 9/12/2023

In addition, I suppose the topic name could be changed as it isn't a glitch, but I can't seem to do that.  In any case, we will look into removing those two attributes. 

To be clear, if we just delete those lines of code, that would do the trick, correct?

Thanks again!
By Dave - 9/12/2023

LSResearcher - 9/12/2023
In addition, I suppose the topic name could be changed as it isn't a glitch, but I can't seem to do that.  In any case, we will look into removing those two attributes. 

To be clear, if we just delete those lines of code, that would do the trick, correct?

Thanks again!

Yes, simply change

<trial score_report>
/ stimulusframes = [1=scorereport]
/ pretrialsignal = (keyboard, 57)
/ validresponse = (lbuttondown)
/ posttrialsignal = (keyboard, 57)
/ recorddata = false
</trial>


to

<trial score_report>
/ stimulusframes = [1=scorereport]
/ validresponse = (lbuttondown)
/ recorddata = false
</trial>


and you'll see the scores right away; clicking anywhere then will end the task. No more white screens and spacebar presses.
By LSResearcher - 9/12/2023

Thanks again!  Super helpful!