Hello there,

I am having quite some trouble programming in Inquisit, it is the following I need to do:

An selection of 45 pictures should be randomly presented for eight, ten or twelve seconds. So 15 pictures should be presented for eight, 15 pictures for ten and 15 pictures for twelve seconds. After those eight, ten or twelve seconds the picture has to disappear and an question with likert scale should appear. After answering the question the next picture should be presented and so forth. 

Is there any research that has done something similar because I'm just not getting the hang of it... what should I do? Maybe my question is a little bit too broad to answer, but please tell me if that is the case.

Greetings,

Pieter

Here's an example with <text> elements, but the exact same setup also applies to <pictures>:

<block myblock>
/ trials = [1-6=noreplace(8sec,10sec,12sec)]
</block>

<likert 8sec>
/ stimulustimes = [0=mytext; 8000=erasestim, question]
/ anchors = [1="Yuck"; 5="Splendid"]
</likert>

<likert 10sec>
/ stimulustimes = [0=mytext; 10000=erasestim, question]
/ anchors = [1="Yuck"; 5="Splendid"]
</likert>

<likert 12sec>
/ stimulustimes = [0=mytext; 12000=erasestim, question]
/ anchors = [1="Yuck"; 5="Splendid"]
</likert>

<shape erasestim>
/ color = white
/ shape = rectangle
/ position = (50%, 35%)
/ size = (10%,10%)
/ erase = false
</shape>

<text mytext>
/ items = myitems
/ position = (50%, 35%)
/ size = (10%,10%)
/ select = noreplace
/ erase = false
</text>

<item myitems>
/ 1 = "A"
/ 2 = "B"
/ 3 = "C"
/ 4 = "D"
/ 5 = "E"
/ 6 = "F"
</item>

<text question>
/ items = ("Now rate the stimulus:")
/ position = (50%, 35%)
/ size = (10%,10%)
</text>

I recommend you thoroughly work through the tutorials contained in the documentation as well as the How-to section.

Regards,

~Dave

Thank you very much! That helped a lot!!! Now I have just two more questions: 

1) How do you make it an 7-point instead of 5-point scale? I tried to adjust the 5 to a 7, but it seems that just doesn't do the trick. I do not see any other references to the amount of options though.

2) How do you make the question to be presented horizontally instead of vertically? 

I think I'll then know enough to complete my experiment :)

Thank you very much once more!

Pieter

See the documentation for the /numpoints attribute.

That's not possible with <likert>s. You'd have to use standard <trial> elements and build the desired layout from scratch (see the "custom likert scale" script available at https://www.millisecond.com/download/library/v2/default.aspx for that).

Thank you once more! I have now been able to finish programming my experiment! You've been a great help!

There is just one more thing I'd like to ask. I have an instruction text by using the <page> tag. Is it possible to give a single word in the instruction text a different color or make it bold? I would like to highlight some words in the instruction text :)

Thank you!

If you require fancy formatting for instruction pages (such as displaying single words in bold or italics), you need to set up HTML pages and use Inquisit's <htmlpage> element instead of <page> to display them as instructions.

Well, I did not think I'd have another question, but unfortunately I do. I've used the basic code you've provided but I now need to add one more thing. The pictures needs to simulate an loading time of randomly 2, 3, 4 and 5 seconds. Which means that after answering the likert question the screen has to be blank for either 2, 3, 4 or 5 seconds (randomly chosen) before showing the picture for 8, 10 or 12 seconds. Is there an easy way to program this? If you could help me, I would be very happy :)

I promise this will be the last question :)

You'll want to use either /pretrialpause or /posttrialpause to do this. Those attributes accept variables (<values> references) or random values pulled from a <counter> or <list> element.

<likert mylikert>
/ pretrialpause = counter.loadtime.selectedvalue
</likert>

<counter loadtime>
/ select = replace(2000,3000,4000,5000)
</counter>

<block myblock>
/ trials = [1-10=mylikert]
</block>