Too big reaction times in the data

[bilge_ilhan]

My OP is Win10.
I use PsychoPy version 2024.2.4
I downloaded with Standard Standalone Installation
At first, I successfully composed my experiment on Builder. But I saw that PsychoPy did not save my data as .csv file. I somehow managed to convert it into a .csv file via Excel. Now my problem is I have noticed that for some words the reaction time values are extremely large (e.g., 2.320.109.100.022.810 ms), while for others, the values appear normal (e.g., 637 ms).
Could you provide guidance on what might be causing this and how to resolve it?

[wakecarter]

@bilge_ilhan

But I saw that PsychoPy did not save my data as .csv file. I somehow managed to convert it into a .csv file via Excel.

If you didn’t get a trial by trail CSV file, where did this data come from?

Excel can mangle data, especially when set to having commas as the decimal separator. What does the original file look like if you open it in a text editor?

Personally, I get better results opening data files by double-clicking on them than by opening them from Excel.

[JensBoelte]

Hello @bilge_ilhan

It is most likely that Excel tried to recognize the cell format and applied a wrong transformation. Use a standard text editor to take a look at the file and proper statistical software for analysis.

Best wishes Jens

[bilge_ilhan]

Hi,
I actually got my data from a csv file but there was no .csv extension on the file name or anything. When I first opened it up, the visualisation was quite complicated. This was what it looked like at first;

Then I converted this into a more readable way by using “Text to Columns” option in Excel.
But then as you can see in my last message, the reaction times came out too big.

@wakecarter

What does the original file look like if you open it in a text editor?

I now tried to open the original file on WordPad;

I think I have highlighted the places that I believe are reaction times. Do you think it looks reasonable now? If so, is there any way to show this RTs as they are in Excel? Because it seems hard to sort out the data on WordPad.

Thanks for your time

[wakecarter]

I imagine the CSV extension was hidden.

Wakefield's Daily Tips

Show your file extensions By default Windows hides the file extensions of file types it recognises, instead showing an icon to indicate the type of file. In PsychoPy, and especially when running experiments online, you need to be sure that the file extensions you include in your spreadsheets and Builder files exactly match the ones on your computer. Here is where you turn on viewing file extensions (and hidden files) in Windows Explorer. [image] On a Mac the instructions from Show or hide fi…

That is what I get when I open PsychoPy data files from Excel too, which is why I usually open the file with Excel rather then opening the file from Excel.

As @JensBoelte points out, you could go straight to opening/processing the file in a stats package.