Is there any additional documentation on data file (.csv) output?

Hi Folks.

So I’me getting close to having my experiment working (it’s a bit epic) and I now need to think about what data to capture and how to write it to an output file.

I’ve had a look at the .csv file my experiment currently generates and it is bewildering. So much data. Is there a column for every single component? Why?

The only doco on this I am aware of for this stuff is the scant two paragraphs on page 17 of the manual that I have (version 21.1.2) - but I’m not sure where I got this manual from - or where to get a later version.

I note there is no link to a manual on this page: https://workshops.psychopy.org/teaching/index.html

I have done the intensive 3 day course and have used the method outlined in 1.7.5 Storing Custom Variables - which works - but I am still a bit unclear about the format of this output file. Furthermore I would VERY much like to make this file less verbose so that when I have run my experiment I don’t have to spend lots of time picking through the spreadsheet digging out the variables/data that I want.

In short - are there any additional resources or doco for how to best generate, manage and format the output files generated by an experiment.

Thanks for any help with this.

Regards,

Dan.

By default every component saves its onset and offset times to the data file when run locally. I usually turn this off by unticking this feature in each component.

Keyboard components save the last key by default default (which adds two columns). I set this to none for ones used to view instructions, etc.

Loops add a new line and several columns about each iteration unless you turn off “is trials”. This can be helpful when preloading stimuli or nested loops.

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Oh awesome. Thanks so much @wakecarter !!!

That already explains about 70% of what I probably need to know.

:slight_smile:

Any more doco lying around anywhere?

Thanks again.

D.

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I might add what I’ve just written to my crib sheet.

What else do you want to know about.

One key thing to know is that columns are added as needed so can end up in different orders if different participants are exposed to routines in different orders. In prospective memory experiments I save blank columns on filler trials so that I don’t have a problem if the first response is a target response.