Getting Started with SuperLab

‍Let’s Run an Experiment

‍The basic units of a SuperLab experiment are blocks, trials, and trial designs. A trial requires one design. A block can consist of as many trials as you need:

‍A newly created experiment contains two blocks, two trials, and two designs to get you started. It is ready to go:

• Click on the Ready to Run button; SuperLab will show with a couple of options.
• Click on the Run button; SuperLab will open a window that covers the entire display.
• Press any key to proceed to next trial.

‍When done, SuperLab will return to the main experiment window.

‍A Tour of the Main Window

‍On the left, the main window has a sidebar for editing different aspects of the experiment. This is the view when Experiment is selected in the sidebar:

‍This view is where you connect blocks, trials, and trial designs together:

• Select a block: all the trials that have their checkboxes enabled will be part of that block.
• Select a trial, then select the trial design that applies to that trial. SuperLab shows a thumbnail preview of the design.
• You can double-click on the thumbnail to edit the trial design.

‍Now let’s build an experiment. In our experiment, a trial consists of a cue that stays on the screen for one second followed by the name of an animal.

‍Using The Trial Designer

‍In the main window:

• Click on the trial named “Trials”; it uses a design named “My Design”.
• Double-click on the thumbnail (or click on the edit icon).

‍This will open the trial designer. The three main areas are:

• “A” shows the slide thumbnails. This default design has two slides, one containing a cue and the other one is blank. Click on a thumbnail to select the slide you want to edit.
• “B” represents your display, scaled down, providing a real what-you-see-is-what-you-get designer.
• “C” is the inspector; more on that in a little bit.

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