In this tutorial, we build a word/non-word experiment that will present instructions to the participant followed by six trials. Each trial will consist of a cue and stimulus.
When developing your own experiments, it is important to plan carefully and take advantage of the stimulus lists feature. This can save you a lot of development time, will make it easier to see the structure of your experiment and maintain it, and will make analyzing the data easier later on.
This is worth emphasizing: you should use stimulus lists whenever possible. This will save you time, allow you to add new items to the lists without affecting the experimental design, and provide you with more options, e.g. two-level randomization.
In this experiment, the participant is expected to press the letter “y” (for yes) if it’s a word or “n” if it is not a word. Let’s start by defining these two keys as responses:
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In the sidebar, click on Input.
At the bottom click on the + icon.
SuperLab will create a response with a default name that is ready to be edited; type “Yes”.
Click on the edit field that follows “the following key” and type “y”.
You have created the first response.
Now create the second one by clicking on the + icon again, rename the new response to “No”, and set the key to “n”.
Experiment Structure
This diagram illustrates the structure of the experiment we want to build:
Notice how “Word Trials” and “Non-Word Trials” are represented using two stacked rectangles. This indicates that a stimulus list is used by the trial’s design, resulting in multiple presentations. More below.
Creating Stimulus Lists
We need two lists, one for the words and one for the non-words.
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In the sidebar, click on Stimulus Lists.
Click on the + icon. SuperLab will ask you to choose the type of list. The default, Text, is what we want; click on OK.
SuperLab will create a list with a default name that is ready to be edited; type “Words”.
Click on the edit field under “List Items:” and type
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For the list of words, we need to do one more thing: tell SuperLab what is the correct response:
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Click on the Responses tab; you will see the two “Yes” and “No” responses that we created earlier.
Click on the checkbox for “Yes”.
That’s it, we are done with the list of words.
In the Responses tab, notice the checkbox Correct response is the same for all items in the list. Unless there is something in your experimental design that prevents you from doing so, we recommend that this checkbox be always enabled. When enabled, you can add list items or edit them without having to worry about setting the correct response for each item.
Now let’s create the list of non-words:
Click on the List & Items tab.
Click on the + icon. When prompted for the type of list, click on OK.
SuperLab will create a list with a default name that is ready to be edited; type “Non-Words”.
Click on the edit field under “List Items:” and add the items “neibs”, “quihs”, and “chortz”.
Click on the Response tab.
Click on the checkbox for the “No” response.
The two stimulus lists are now ready to be used.
The Trial Designs
When you open a new experiment, SuperLab creates two trial designs: “Instructions” and “My Design”:
In the sidebar, click on Trial Designs.
Double-click on the “My Design” to edit it.
Type “Words design” then press Enter.
Click on the Edit Design button or double-click on the design thumbnail.
This will launch the trial designer. The default design that SuperLab had created contains two slides named “Cue” and “Stimulus”.
[INSERT SCREENSHOT HERE of the trial design, perhaps upper part only]
The Cue slide is set to appear for 500 milliseconds. Feel free to make changes in the inspector.
Click on the “Stimulus” slide to select it.
In the black bar, click on the “open toolbox” icon; the toolbox appears.
Click on the icon for Text. SuperLab will display a dialog so you can provide the text.
This dialog has two tabs. Use the This Text tab to provide instructions or any other text that does not require a list. But for our purpose:
[INSERT SCREENSHOT HERE of the text editing dialog]
Click on the Use a List tab.
Click on the I want to use an existing list checkbox. Note how you are able to create a list on the fly as well.
SuperLab will now display the two lists we previously created; select “Words”.
Click on OK.
SuperLab will display the text on the slide; click on it. The toolbox will automatically close and be replaced in the inspector by the text properties.
Feel free to adjust the font size or other text properties.
Click on Close Trial Designer button.
We have now finished the first design and we are back in the main window.
Next: let’s create the trial design for non-words:
In the main window, select “Words design” if it is not already selected.
Click on the duplicate trial design icon. The name of the new copy is ready to be edited.
Type “Non words” and press Enter.
Double-click on the design thumbnail or click on the Edit Design button; the trial designer will open.
Select the second “Stimulus” slide.
Select the existing text object.
In the black bar, click on the delete icon .
In the black bar, click on the “open toolbox” icon; the toolbox appears.
Click on the icon for Text. SuperLab will display the dialog for editing the text.
Click on the Use a List tab.
Click on the I want to use an existing list checkbox.
Select “Non-words”.
Click on OK.
Click on Close Trial Designer button.
We have completed creating the needed trial designs. The next step is to use them.
The Trials
In sidebar, click on Experiment.
Click on the trial “Trials”; it is using “Words design” already.
Double-click on “Trials”. The trial editor appears.
In the edit field, rename it to “Word trials”.
Click on the Back button.
Click on the icon to create a new trial. SuperLab will name it “Trial 1” by default.
Double-click on “Trial 1” to edit it.
Rename it to “Non-word trials”.
Click on the Back button.
Under the label “Use This Trial Design”, change the design to “Non-words design”.
The trials are now all setup. We’re almost there.
The Experiment
Lastly, we need to have the block include both trials.
Click on the block “Block 1”.
Notice how the trial “Word trials” is checked but “Non-word trials” is not.
Click on the checkbox for “Non-word trials”.
“Block 1” now includes both word and non-word trials. There is one last step but an important one:
