Simulating Keypress (beginners question)

[Marc]

hi there,

I'm just starting using E-Prime (with some VB experience, though) and
was trying to do something simple as that:

There are three stimuluses ("1","2","nothing") displayed in a
TextDisplay element which is set to react on event.
Correct responses for 1 is 1, for 2 is 2 and for nothing I'd like it
to be nothing at all.
In case the stimulus is 1 or 2 the program is supposed to wait for the
user to make his input, in the "nothing" case it's supposed to wait
for 3 or so seconds and then go to the next stimulus.

I tried to solve this via VB skills and I'm absolutely stuck here...

My code:

Dim Start as Long
Dim now as Long
Start = Clock.Read

if TextDisplay1.CRESP = "" then
do
DoKeys "a"
now= Clock.Read - Start
loop until now>2000
end if

What I'm trying to do is simulating the press of some random key (a in
this case) in order to move to the next event as soon as the 2000 ms
are over (a is also among the allowable inputs in my TextDisplay). I
tried the same with SendKeys and it won't work either, it does,
though, when I press the a key manually.

What am I doing wrong?
I'm almost certain there is an easier way to do what I want to do but
unfortunately I don't seem to be able to figure out what to google/e-
basic-/eprime search.

Some help (may it be "search for xyz in abc before asking, fool")
would be greatly appreciated!!

Marc

P.S.: In case you wonder - the programs purpose is simply getting the
loop to work and then applying it to a bitter, existing e-prime file
which we want to use as a dependent variable.

[ben robinson]

if i've understood the question, this is very easy to accomplish.
on whatever object is presenting your stimuli and collecting your
responses (probably the same object, possibly a TextObject or
SlideObject), set the InputDevice to Keyboard, Allowable responses to
"12" (without the quotes, which will make both 1 and 2 allowable
resposes), Duration to 3000, and EndAction to Terminate.
doing this will cause your Stim object to run for 3000 ms, during
which time it will accept responses of 1 or 2 only, and when one of
those responses is received the Stim object will Terminate, going to
the object in your procedure. if no response is received the object
will terminate after 3000 ms. this should be covered somewhere near
the very beginning of the Getting Started guide which comes with
E-Prime...

ben

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "E-Prime" group.
> To post to this group, send email to e-p...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to e-prime+u...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/e-prime?hl=en.
>
>

[Marc]

Hi Ben,

thanks for your input :)
The main problem is that in case that Stim 1 or 2 is presented the
program is supposed to wait until the user does actually react, no
matter how long that takes him. For the "nothing" Stims the
participants are told not to react on the stimulus at all, and what we
want to do is record whether they react anyway or not.
I tried setting duration to our desired presentation time for the no-
reaction stims, but didn't know how to tell E-Prime to ignore duration
time during the other stims. I read something about custom event
timing, but wasn't able to really figure out how that works to the
extent of using it...I thought it'd be something like "if stim=1 or
stim=2 then OnSetTime=0 and [durationVariable=infinite] else OnSetTime
= 0 and [durationVariable=3000]" but everything I tried with the
commands the E-Basic reference provides failed.

[David Vinson]

Hi Marc,

If your different stimulus types are loaded from a List, you could
specify StimulusDuration in the list (-1 for stimulus type 1/2, or 3000
for the "nothing" stimulus) then on the data collection object, set
Duration to [StimulusDuration]. Unless there's some other reason you
need to do this with E-basic.

cheers,
david

--
David Vinson, Ph.D.
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher
Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department
University College London
26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP
Tel +44 (0)20 7679 5311 (UCL internal ext. 25311)

[ben robinson]

this is the answer you're looking for, marc.

[Marc]

I knew that there had to be a super-easy way to do it.

Thanks a lot you two!!!