How to implement equal no. of switch and non-switch trials

Builder
1

Hi I am trying to design a simple classification task in which participants switch between classifying a number (odd/even) and a letter (vowel/consonant).

Up till now I randomize the select of the classification (whether letter or number), however, I now want to control how many trials are switch trials (i.e., letter/number or number/letter) and how many are non-switch (letter/letter and number/number).

I would appreciate any help on this.

Till now I have no code and all have been designed using builder. I am attaching a screenshot of this.

SharedScreenshot_2
SharedScreenshot_21905×924 200 KB

SharedScreenshot
SharedScreenshot1920×1024 115 KB

2

Would you be happy for me to use your experiment as the basis of a public demo for this?

In order to balance both switch/same trials and letter/number trials I’d use a variation on my independent randomisation demo but with two separate switch balancing lists. In the spreadsheet I’d put a letter and a number in the same row so that either of the two can be selected as appropriate.

I’m currently marking, but I can easily find enough time next week.

3

I’m also just now implementing a task-switching experiment and mostly rely on Builder.

Usually, it is dfficult to generate constrained randomization online, since you may run into a dead end (the next trial must be type X, but all trials of type X have already been used up). Therefore, I prepare csv files in R (quite brute force, actuially, simply generating an order and then testing whether the number of same and switch trials is the same and only keeping those).

Then I restrict my participant codes to be pp01…pp99 (actually probably pp40) and then use the number to read in a specific file in a code component in Builder, as below

So, with participant code being, e.g. “pp01” → 

full_pp_name = expInfo['participant']
block1_dataSource = full_pp_name + "_b1.csv"
block2_dataSource = full_pp_name + "_b2.csv"

Then I use those variables as “conditions” file in the block settings (see image below).
Despite the red ink on that window, it works. It’s crucial to set the loop type to sequential then.

block_conditions

I am happy to share the R-code as well, feel free to contact me outside this forum (since this is not an R forum).

4

You may be interested in my new Randomisation without repetition demo. I deal with the dead end issue by adding additional trials if the experiment is about to get stuck. It’s not a perfect solution, but I wanted to present an alterative to the approach of preloading the trials and reshuffling until the order passes the criteria.

5

Sure feel free to use the exp for demo.

I’ll have a look at the indepentent randomization demo and take it from there, thanks.

6

This is an interesting way around it, more likely as a plan B for me as not well versed in R. I’ll get in touch should the above fail. Thanks for this!

7

Cool. Please could PM me your psyexp and spreadsheet files with it working how you want it in random order and I’ll take it from there.

8

I’ve just finished my trial switching demo.

Trial Switching code | try it

This demo randomises switch and non-switch trials in a classification task. The conditions are preloaded using a code component and allocated to two lists so that switch and non-switch trials can be balanced. The first trial type is random and the final one is allocated based on the remaining condition available.