Adding interword interval (ISI) with word-by-word sentence presentation

Builder
1

OS (e.g. Win10): Win10
PsychoPy version (e.g. 1.84.x): 2022.2.3
Standard Standalone? (y/n) If not then what?: y
What are you trying to achieve?:

Hi everyone! I am programming an EEG experiment where sentences of varying length will be presented word by word with (and this is where it got tricky for me) a picture of the speaker above them. Each word is supposed to be presented for 200 ms + additional 30 ms per each letter. Importantly, however, I need a 500 ms interword interval during which the picture of the speaker must stay on the screen but no word will be shown.
I managed to achieve word-by-word presentation together with the picture but without the interword interval using this code:

Begin Routine
words = sentence.split()
numWords = len(words)
i = 0
frameCounter = 0

Each Frame
if i <= numWords-1:
text.setText(words[i])
frameCount = 29 + (len(words[i].split()) * int(0.03*144)) # my screen runs at 144 Hz, so 29 frames is about 200 ms, etc.
frameCounter+=1
if frameCounter == frameCount:
i+=1
frameCounter = 0
else:
continueRoutine = False

So my problem is adding the interword interval (500ms). I know I need to somehow add text.setText(" ") displaying for 72 frames but I can’t figure out how to do it. Any help will be greatly appreciated

2

How about this?

Begin Routine

words = sentence.split()
numWords = len(words)
i = 0
frameCounter = 0
showISI = False

Each Frame

if i <= numWords-1:
    if not showISI:
        text.setText(words[i])
        frameCount = 29 + (len(words[i].split()) * int(0.03*144)) 
        frameCounter+=1
        if frameCounter == frameCount:
            i+=1
            frameCounter = 0
            showISI = True
    if showISI:
        text.setText(" ")
        frameCounter += 1
        if frameCounter == 72:
            frameCounter = 0
            showISI = False
else:
    continueRoutine = False
3

Thank you so much ajus, it works perfectly!!! Very elegant too!

4

Hi all,
I have tried this code to measure response time to word by word task response.
begin routine:
words = sentence.split()
i = 0
frameCounter = 0 #it all happens within the same routine so make our own counter
each frame:

Assuming you have loaded the current trial from your conditions file

Get all words from the columns like word_1, word_2, etc.

word_columns = [col for col in thisTrial.keys() if col.startswith(‘word_’)] # Dynamically fetch word columns
words = [thisTrial[word] for word in word_columns] # List of all words in the sentence

Initialize the currentWordIndex

currentWordIndex = 0

Initialize a list to store response times for each word

response_times = [None] * len(words) # Store response times for all words

Main loop to update the word display based on key press

while currentWordIndex < len(words): # Loop through all words
# Display the current word and get the time
text_desplay.setText(words[currentWordIndex])
text_desplay.draw()
win.flip()

start_time = core.getTime()  # Start time when the word is shown

keys = event.waitKeys(keyList=['space', 'escape'])  # Wait for key press

# If the spacebar is pressed, record response time for the current word
if 'space' in keys:
    response_time = core.getTime() - start_time  # Calculate response time
    response_times[currentWordIndex] = response_time  # Store the response time

    currentWordIndex += 1  # Move to the next word
    
if 'escape' in keys:  # To allow exiting the experiment early
    core.quit()

After the loop, retrieve response times for all words

For example, you can save response times for target_word, after_word, last_word

thisExp.addData(‘TargetWordRT’, response_times[0]) # Assuming target is word_1 for example
thisExp.addData(‘AfterWordRT’, response_times[1]) # Assuming after word is word_2 for example
thisExp.addData(‘LastWordRT’, response_times[-1]) # Last word in the sentence
thisExp.nextEntry() # Move to the next entry in the data file

it worked well offline but not online
I got this error:
Unfortunately we encountered the following error:

  • ReferenceError: thisTrial is not defined

Try to run the experiment again. If the error persists, contact the experiment designer.
any help please?
Thank you!