Psychopy Tasks

Complex Span tasks implemented in Psychopy.

Structure

Since most tasks in psychology proceed in a simple sequential order, the goal of this project is to build simple modular components that can be put together into an experiment.

For example, a complex span task consists of three basic parts

1. Present memory item
2. Do simple distractor task (then repeat..)
3. Recall

It tends to be the exception, rather than the rule, that the way a participant performs on one component affects the next component. Since components tend to be independent, we can..

1. Build them to be modular.
2. Generate the instructions for what components to run when beforehand.

Point (2) is especially important. Oftentimes, the logic and order of task components is hard-coded in advanced. However, if we can generate task recipes, and easily make tasks from them, then modifying tasks on the fly will be a snap.

Task Design Example

in	item	mode	corr
0	memory A	learn
0	dist A	dist	True
0	dist B	dist	True
1	memory B	learn
1	dist A	dist	False
1	dist B	dist	False
2	memory C	learn
2	dist A	dist	False
2	dist B	dist	True
	recall

Running

Here, the mode column corresponds to the procedure that we'll be using. For each row in the data, the corresponding procedure will be called, with all the column data for that row passed as arguments.

Logging Data

Ideally, each procedure should provide outputs that could easily be turned into a table. Thus, the recall procedure might return..

pos	out
0	memory A
1	memory B

or something similar.