Q: When should I use timeout duration vs. trial duration?

A: When you are trying to do a speeded task where participants must respond within X number of seconds depending on the trial, the recommended approach is set a timeout duration on the choice response rather than on the trial. Trial durations are usually only a good idea for training trials, where no responses are needed. For more information about controlling trial timing, see: Adjusting the Timing of Trials | FindingFive Study Grammar Documentation

Dear Researchers,

We have discovered an issue with how stimulus files were handled in the latest study grammar version. If you had launched a session in the past week that required external stimulus files, it might have reported network errors to participants. This issue is now fixed, thanks to the timely report by Yilmaz Dogukan Ozlu from University of Arizona.

We highly recommend stopping the current session and launching a new one. You only need to do so if:

• Your session is launched under the latest Study Grammar version (i.e., you previewed your experiment within the last 2 weeks)
  
• Your experiment uses stimulus files.
  

Dear Researchers,

The 2022 Fall Study Grammar Update is almost here! This update contains quite a few new features and improvements that we are really excited about! FindingFive servers (US and EU, in their respective local times) will be updated on the early morning of Friday, November 11, 2022 to include the following changes:

1. Major Upgrade - Stimulus files are now bundled with launched sessions!

We have implemented a groundbreaking solution that addresses multiple pain points in running experiments with stimulus files. Starting with this grammar update, stimulus files are now bundled with launched sessions, instead of being dynamically sourced from "Resource Files" storage. This has a number of advantages:

• You can edit, replace, or even remove stimulus files in your account (under "Resource Files") after a session is launched. Such actions won't affect the active session because copies of the stimulus files have already been bundled together with the launched session.
  
• The rendered experiment in a launched session will generally load faster as bundled stimulus files are saved into our distributed cloud infrastructure, as compared to a centralized database. 
  
• We will soon be able to introduce a "time capsule" function, where you can duplicate the exact settings of a previous session, even using stimulus files that have been bundled with that session.
  

• A new "target" property which allows accuracy determination on individual rating responses (when applicable) and/or in evaluating accuracy for conditionally branched procedures.
  
• A new "target_sum" property which requires the sum of ratings in a multi-row rating response to add up to a certain number (our thanks to Souad Kheder of University of Florida for suggestion this feature)
  

• When used with multiple rows, the rating response no longer momentarily flashes all rows in the beginning under the Safari browser. This issue did not affect Firefox or Chrome users.
  

• The cover page of an experiment has been updated to better confirm with the design language of the rest of FindingFive.
  
• The base font of an experiment has been updated to use the same font as the rest of FindingFive.
  

Hello! I'm current coding an audio sentence judgment task with comprehension questions and I've been encountering difficulties for randomization. Specifically, for each test trial, participants will need to do the following things: (1) listen to a sentence, (2)  press "Yes" or "No" for the judgment task, and (3) answer a comprehension question. Currently, I'm looking for ways to randomized the order of the test audio stimuli, but I couldn't really find a way to do it because the order of the stimuli would not match the order of the corresponding comprehension question afterwards. Is there a way for us to do the randomization for this type of task? Any thoughts and feedback would be appreciated!

I think I've made a big mistake! I ran several studies and collected data -- but didn't download data from the sessions. I then deleted the studies to make room for new (running out of file space). Now I can't find any of the study sessions with my data! Is there any way of recovering the data from my now missing sessions?

Hi! 
I'm working on an experiment where I would like participants to take part in several studies (verbal fluency, picture-naming, AX-CPT, self-paced reading, judgement task) in one session. I am wondering if there's a way where I could code so that participants will be re-directed to another study automatically after completion of a study (like on Qualtrics survey)? I understand that we could potentially put together several studies into one trial template, but I'm trying to avoid it because of some of the time-lag issues that participants have been experiencing on tasks that measure reaction time. I'm also trying to avoid having different responses type on the same result file. Any suggestion would be appreciated, thanks so much!

Hi,
Many times after running a study in preview (not as a session) and clicking the "Download Data" button (next to "To get data after previewing, click ->") nothing happens no matter how long I wait. 
However sometimes, I'll do the same, and after a minute or so, the data is available. Is there any way of fixing this issue? It can be frustrating to spend 20-30 minutes testing a study in preview and then not being able to download the data!

-- sten

Hi,
It is my first time working with this software and my question might sound silly, but is there a way to change the amount of time the participants will have to name the categories in this test? I used the template and it is set for only 10 seconds and I would like to make it 60 seconds. Thank you in advance! It looks like that now:
"FreeRecallInstructionTT": {
    "type": "instruction",
    "stimuli": [
      "FreeRecallInstruction"
    ]
  },
  "FullCategory": {
    "type": "instruction",
    "stimuli": [
      "Mammals",
      "Things in the kitchen",
      "Fruits"
          ],
    "delay": 0,
    "stimulus_pattern": {
      "order": "fixed"
    },
    "responses": [
      "recallAudioResponse"
    ]

I received this error when trying to preview and launch a new session but I cannot find the coding error in the Study Grammar:
"Your study contains coding errors that we cannot automatically detect yet. Please refer to the Study Grammar Reference for help."

Dear Researchers,

We are excited to announce the availability of the 2022 Summer Study Grammar Update! FindingFive servers (US and EU) will be updated on the early morning of Monday August 15, 2022 to include the following changes:

A Completely Redesigned Multi-row Rating Response

The newly designed rating response now supports presenting multiple questions (i.e., rows of ratings) in a single response. This can be quite handy if you are interested in asking participants to rate on multiple properties of a stimulus (e.g., the shape, size, and color of an object). Previously, you'd need to create three rating responses and stack them awkwardly on the same trial - well, that kind of hassle is no longer necessary!

   

Additionally, you'll find the redesigned rating response to be aesthetically more pleasing and congruent with the overall theme of FindingFive.

New Audio Recording Tricks
The audio response and the background audio response can now do the following two nifty tricks:

• Automatically trimming the leading silence of a recording
  
• Automatically stopping a recording when participants stop speaking (heuristically determined)