I was wondering if I can check post factum whether my participants opened the procedure on a computer or a smartphone. I found out that in some result files there is a column labeled “OS” which stores the information about the device’s operating system, such as “Win32” or “iPhone”. Oddly, in some files, there is no such column. Does anyone know why this information is stored in only some of the files?
The procedure was run through Pavlovia from ca. 11 Jan to 21 Feb 2021, and it used PsychoPy v. 10.02.2020.
There are some tricks to get such information, but they would require changes to your data collection; it’s not really achievable post factum. About OS: it used to be that browsers gave a lot of information about the OS, their version, etc., but browsers are increasingly masking it, so that might explain why it’s missing for some participants.
I wonder whether it depends on whether the participant uses an incognito tab?
Thank you!
Concerning these informations that are stored by the browser, do you know if it can read the sound level ? I know that it can’t be change for security purposes but I don’t know if we can read it,
Short answer: nope 
@wakecarter, yeah that probably plays a role, but in general they just make it harder. A big reason for that is to prevent web-sites from identifying users.
Probably yes, but not sure. What I’m personally thinking of are developments like this one: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-to-phase-out-user-agent-strings-in-chrome/