150 trial limit

[sac429]

Hello, 

I'm receiving an error that says the trials in block "preview_sentence_choice_production" exceed the upper limit of 150. 

Code:

    "preview_sentence_choice_production": {
      "trial_templates": ["preview_template","sentence_template","choice_template","production_template"],
    "pattern": {"order": "alternate_random", "repeat": 1}
}

Our study aims to have 72 sentences and 4 stimuli per sentence (2 text stimuli, 2 images), resulting in 288 trials according to FF.
 
Based on an older post in the forum, I see that there is a way to increase the maximum allowed trials. Would it be okay to add "max_trials: 300" or would this affect the performance of the study/be unideal for FF's servers? 

We may also break this block up into 2 blocks (144 trials each), which will be under the 150 limit, but I just wanted to know if increasing the max trials was a feasible option. 

Thank you for your assistance! 
Serena

[Ting]

Hi Serena,

Setting max_trials to 300 in the corresponding block is probably going to work just fine. It actually doesn't affect FF's servers that much - it's usually the participants' browser may crash if there are too many trials generated at once. But that limit was put in in 2018, and computers have become significantly faster since then. We should probably revisit the limit as well.

Splitting the block is another viable strategy, but given its just 144 vs 288, I'd say just change max_trials to avoid the hassle. Once we are approaching 500 trials per block, breaking up the block becomes a better solution.

We are in fact working on changing how trials are generated under the hood so that this will hopefully become a non-issue in the near future (early 2025 I hope!).

Ting

[sac429]

Hi Ting, 
Thank you so much for the clarification! 
Best,
Serena