I am using PsychoPy v2022.2.4 on macOS Ventura Version 13.1 (22C65).
I have issues on how to randomise within and between loops without repetition. My experiment consists of 9 trials (indicated by the loop “songs” , please see picture at the bottom). In one of the sections (Encoding_StoringStage) I am presenting 12 words each trial. I have 108 different words and I would want each word to only be shown once.
As seen in the picture attached, in the loop I have my nReps at 1 and my selected rows with this as: $random(12)*108 ; with this, 12 words are presented but they are repeated both in the same trial (loop) and in the next following trials- so each word is randomly shown more than once. Then I added a code in End Routine: if WordsPresented.thisN == 11:
WordsPresented.finished = True
(please see picture) that was suggested in this previous forum post:
And the words were still being repeated between trials.I also tried adding the code in Begin Routine instead but they were still being repeated. I tried the code leaving “selected rows” and “nReps”, and just “nReps” empty but I get this error for both:
108
10.1220 WARNING t of last frame was 10.92ms (=1/91)
File “/Users/marian/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-UniversityofWestLondon/third year/Diss/0EXPERIMENTS/RECALL_with_Music_Marian_DissertationPsychoPy_lastrun.py”, line 1147, in
WordsPresented = data.TrialHandler(nReps=None, method=‘random’,
File “/Applications/PsychoPy.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.8/psychopy/data/trial.py”, line 147, in init
self.nReps = int(nReps)
TypeError: int() argument must be a string, a bytes-like object or a number, not ‘NoneType’
################# Experiment ended with exit code 1 [pid:4415] #################
When the custom code is added the words don’t repeat in the same trial, but they are shown again in other trials. When it is only $random(12)*108 is on selected rows, and no custom code is added to the routine, the words repeat within trials. I don’t want any words to be repeated at all throughout the whole experiment, I only want each of the 108 words to be shown just once.
Please let me know if I have not been clear enough. Would very much appreciate any help. Please find below some screenshots and my experiment attached to help make it more clear.
I think I see the basic issue. Because selected rows is picking 12 random rows independently every time, it’s not excluding the rows it picked previously. I think the best option here is to create 9 unique and randomly selected sets of 12 words at the start of the experiment using a code element, and then use a different set of 12 on every loop of ‘songs’
So in your code element, in the ‘Before experiment’ tab, put this:
songsWordLists = []
allWords = list(range(0, 108))
for i in range(0, 9):
# Create a list of 12 randomly selected values
newList = list(choice(allWords, size=12, replace=False))
songsWordLists.append(newList)
# Remove those 12 values from the list of remaining values
for j in range(0, len(newList)):
allWords.pop(allWords.index(newList[j]))
Then in your WordsPresented loop, for “selected rows”, put this:
$songsWordLists[songs.thisRepN-1]
This should make it so that on every repetition of the “songs” loop it picks a different list of 12 randomly selected items.
I have followed your instructions and I am getting this error:
10.4928 WARNING Couldn’t measure a consistent frame rate!
File “/Users/marian/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-UniversityofWestLondon/third year/Diss/0EXPERIMENTS/RECALL_with_Music_Marian_DissertationPsychoPy_lastrun.py”, line 201, in
newList = list(choice(allWords, size=12, replace=False))
NameError: name ‘choice’ is not defined
################ Experiment ended with exit code 1 [pid:11298] #################
I then tried to change “allWords” for “WordItem” (as that is how the spreadsheet with my list of words is named) and it did not work either. I am attaching screenshots to make it clearer.
Ah, my bad, it’s randchoice instead of choice. Try this code:
songsWordLists = []
allWords = list(range(0, 108))
for i in range(0, 9):
# Create a list of 12 randomly selected values
newList = list(randchoice(allWords, size=12, replace=False))
songsWordLists.append(newList)
# Remove those 12 values from the list of remaining values
for j in range(0, len(newList)):
allWords.pop(allWords.index(newList[j]))
I guess songs.thisRepN isn’t working the way I expected it to for some reason. OK, I think it should work if you change your “selected rows” field to this:
$songsWordLists.pop(0)
