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+--- Thread: Support for setting "barrier" on text and image stimuli (/showthread.php?tid=127)
Support for setting "barrier" on text and image stimuli - Ting - 07-22-2021
Dear Researchers,
We are happy to announce a minor feature addition to FindingFive's study grammar: it is now possible to set "barrier" on text and image stimuli!
What's Barrier?
If you haven't heard of barrier and its function in building adapative experiments yet, please check out this tutorial: https://news.findingfive.com/2019/04/23/tutorial-adjusting-the-timing-of-stimuli-with-barriers/
A hypothetical setup: display two text stimuli in order
Imagine that you are displaying two text stimuli on the same trial, where the first text stimulus should stay on the screen for 3 seconds, and then the second stimulus will show up.
This can already be done without this new barrier support for text stimuli, but it comes with some hassle and inflexibility. Essentially, you'll need to set a duration of 3 seconds to the first stimulus, which controls how long the first stimulus is visible, AND a delay of 3 seconds for the second stimulus, which tells the second stimulus not to show up when the first stimulus is visible. This is a little clumsy - we had to modify two stimuli to achieve this functionality. Moreover, if the duration of the first stimulus is variable across trials, this will get out of control: we would need to create many duplicate versions of the second stimulus, each with a different delay setting to accommodate the duration of the first stimulus!
Barrier solves this problem
Now with the newly introduced barrier support for text and image stimuli, this can be easily done. All you need to do is to add to the first stimulus a barrier setting in addition to the duration one, like this:
Code:
"barrier": true,
"duration": 3This tells FindingFive to display the first stimulus for 3 seconds, and bars all subsequent stimuli or responses from showing up until the duration is over. In other words, the barrier function allows you to avoid changing the definition of all following elements, stimulus or response, on the same trial. Overall, such a setup offers a cleaner flow and more predictable trial behavior.
Documentation page is updated
You can find the new entry on "barrier" for the text stimulus and similarly for the image stimulus.
Questions?
Leave your comments below if you have questions about this new feature!