Response Durations when Response Ends Trial

[R_Roy]

OS (e.g. Win10): Win 11
PsychoPy version (e.g. 2024.2.4 Py 3.8): 2025.1.1
Standard Standalone Installation? (y/n) If not then what?: Y
Do you want it to also run online? (y/n) No, locally only
**What are you trying to achieve?
**
I’m developing a Simon task and I need to include the response key press durations- I noticed that the resulting data file populated the responsekeys.duration column with “None.”

I realized that the issue is that I selected to force the end of the routine after responding and that results in the “none” in the duration column. I’m looking for some advice on how to get around this, since I need to end the trials after responding or up to 500ms after stimulus presentation, but I also need the key press duration.

Basic timeline of the experiment:

Stimulus presentation (CircleStim) 0-200ms > response (Responsekeys) until response or up to 500ms > RSI (generated by RSIcode) between 750-1100ms

RSIcode selects the position of the stimulus, generates an RSI value, and keeps track of the score. trialTriggers (disabled) sends EEG triggers to the data collection software which is working.

What did you try to make it work?:
I tried adding the following print statement in the ‘every frame’ tab of a code component:

print(_Responsekeys_allKeys)

which only worked when I unchecked the keyboard component to not force the end of the routine. It produced the following:

[<KeyPress from None: t=32.2623437000002, value=2, duration=None>]

Link to the most relevant existing thread you have found:

Duration of key is always None

OS (e.g. Win10): PsychoPy version (2021.2.0): **Standard Standalone? y **What are you trying to achieve?: I want to know how a long a key was held down for before being released **What did you try to make it work?: For any given key I called for the key.duration attribute **What specifically went wrong when you tried that?: That attribute is always None See below the code I am using inside the Each Frames tab print(_key_mod_allKeys) if len(_key_mod_allKeys): print(_key_mod_allKeys[…

Measuring key lift time relative to stimulus onset

Hi @Becca , I am having some trouble trying to record key press durations using #builder and was wondering if you’d be able to help? In my experiment, participants need to type a word they see on screen, and I want to record the key press duration of each key they press. I have tried adding the following into a code component in my routine: Begin Routine duration=[] kb = keyboard.Keyboard() Each Frame keys2 = kb.getKeys() for key in keys2: if key.duration: duration.append(…

Can't use the new keyboard component (from Psychtoolbox)

Sorry that psychtoolbox lib wasn’t included in the win64 standalone. It is in the next release (3.1.1). The idea of waitRelease is that, in a scenario where you want a duration to be reported we have to decide what to do about keys that are still currently held down (the press is incomplete - we don’t yet have all the data for those). With waitRelease=true only key presses that have been completed are returned, so all are guaranteed to have a duration value, whereas with waitRelease=False a ke…

Force end of routine with the keyboard

Hello, thanks for your answer. Yes Psychopy by default is going through the file row by row, and it is what i need. The issue here is that when i add a ‘space’ key in the routine for the participant to end the routine before psychopy goes through the entire file, psychopy isn’t doing it anymore. It’s showing only one stimulus from the file, and i have to use the space key to make it read the second row, the key setting isn’t doing what i want it to do and in don’t know how to do it. I meant…

What specifically went wrong when you tried that?:

It did not produce a response until I selected not to force the end of the routine for the response, and even when I did get some information, I still had duration = None.

Any help or advice would be appreciated! Thank you for your time

[wakecarter]

How about having two keyboard components: one that detects a press but doesn’t end the trial, and one that detects a key release and ends the trial?

[JensBoelte]

Hello @R_Roy

Another option is to uncheck the Force end of Routine and set store: last key (is the default). Then add the following code to a code-component in the Each frame tab.

keys = kb.getKeys(['space'], waitRelease=True, clear=True)
if keys:
    press_duration = keys[0].duration
    thisExp.addData('press_duration', press_duration)
    continueRoutine = False

Change kbto the name of your keyboard-component (default is key_resp). I think you used Responsekeys. Specify the keys you need in keys = kb.getKeys(['space'], waitRelease=True, clear=True).

Best wishes Jens

[R_Roy]

This was a very elegant solution to the issue- thank you very much!