E-Prime doesn't recognise keyboard input

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Katharina Repnik

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May 22, 2019, 3:36:24 PM5/22/19
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Hi everyone,

hoping someone can help me with my PhD project here.

I am currently designing a new experiment, and am running into some trouble:

On the Slide that I use to present the probe, I collect data via the Eye-tracker and also the keyboard. My aim is to collect people’s eye gaze data until they press one of two allowed response buttons which then terminates the trial and proceeds to the next.

For some reason, however, this is not working. The eyetracker is collecting eyegaze data just fine - but the button press is not being recognised even though I added the device as input mask for that Slide, as well as allowable keys 'mz' and Correct Answer is the Attribute [CRESP] from a list. 

I am not really sure why the programme doesn’t detect the keyboard input. E-prime does not detect an error either. So I don't even know where to start.

I tried using an in-line script to define the EndResponseAction, but that didn’t help.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

The desperate Linguistics student,
Kate

McFarlane, David

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May 23, 2019, 11:49:12 AM5/23/19
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Kate,

Could you tell us what eye tracking system you use, and what sort of
packages you use in E-Prime for that, and what version of E-Prime you use?

I have some experience using E-Prime 2 with an SR Research EyeLink,
controlling that completely with global and inline code (no Packages).
Depending on the task, we might have some inline code running after
presenting a stimulus, and that code would have to take care of
terminating the trial based on a response. For that purpose we might
use InputMasks.IsPending, e.g.,

Do
If Not(MyStimulus.InputMasks.IsPending()) Then GoTo DoneLabel
...
Loop
DoneLabel:

or

Do While MyStimulus.InputMasks.IsPending()
...
Loop

But I cannot tell if any of this applies to your situation.

Best,
-- David McFarlane

Katharina Repnik

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May 23, 2019, 1:55:20 PM5/23/19
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Hi David,

thanks for getting back to me so swiftly.

So, I use a Tobii eye tracker (I think it's a 650XL) and the E-Prime extension for Tobii.
Afaik, I am using E-Prime 2.0 Professional.

It's just funny because the eye-tracking works fine, but it won't take the response buttons for answer. However, it's not like it does not recognise the keyboard at all, because prior to the first trial, I obviously do a calibration that needs to be accepted with pressing ENTER. And I also have some In-line scripts that use keyboard shortcuts to call for a pause/break in the experiment. It must be something on that specific Probe Slide.

Any advice would be amazing! Maybe some sort of in-line script would be helpful here as well?

Thanks in advance,
Kate

McFarlane, David

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May 23, 2019, 2:58:58 PM5/23/19
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Kate,

Well, I have no experience with Tobii or E-Prime Extensions for Tobii,
so this has gone out of my league. Others in the group do use these, so
let's hope that some of them weigh in now.

Best,
-- David McFarlane

Spape, Michiel

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May 23, 2019, 4:46:39 PM5/23/19
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Hi,
Just a little check, because it's confused me as well before. The Tobii doesn't, by any chance, work as a response input (much like a keyboard, etc)? It's not incredibly clear, you see, but if you have multiple response devices, you need to set the allowable ones for each (e.g. mouse allowable 12, keyboard 34, would mean e-prime doesn't react to pressing 1 or 2).
Best,
Michiel
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Katharina Repnik

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May 24, 2019, 4:46:07 AM5/24/19
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Hi Michiel,

yes so both the eyetracker and the keyboard are working as response input. For they eyetracker it is set to {ANY} but without a terminate action; and for the keyboard the allowable response is set to the keys Z and M. Maybe the error is here? In the field of allowable response for keyboard i simply typed zm. Do I need to put those in some brackets? I didn’t think i needed to but maybe i’m just using the field the wrong way. When either of those keys are pressed the terminate function should run and proceed to the next trial, but I want the eyetracker to keep recording until they press a button.

So maybe the reason it doesn’t react is because the eyetracker is set to {ANY} and this overrides the keyboard allowable responses? That could be it. Is there a way to tell the eye-tracker to use {Any} minus ‘zm’ as response? 

Any ideas are appreciated!

Thanks already! 

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Spape, Michiel

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May 24, 2019, 5:27:30 AM5/24/19
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Hi Katharina,

First, o answer: no, simply ‘zm’ (minus quotation marks) should suffice. The brackets are for reserved single keys, like {ENTER}, {SPACE}, so as to not confuse them with the letters ‘e’ ‘n’ ‘t’ and ‘r’; and ‘s’ ‘p’ ‘a’ ‘c’ ‘e’. And no, I don’t think there’s an option for ANY-but-not-these.

However, I think it’s a good idea to explore this option further. See if you can change the eyetracker to have a less wide range of response options – what kind of possibilities are there? I think in general PST codes them with numbers and bracketed options – see if the Tobii manuals (I once worked with one, but it’s been a decade) tell you what kind of possibilities there are, and then try to get the keyboard and eye-tracker response options to not overlap.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Michiel

McFarlane, David

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May 24, 2019, 9:54:19 AM5/24/19
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I am not sure, but shouldn't you use Terminate as the End Action for the
input object that you refer to? What happens if you do that?

Have you worked through the documentation that comes with E-Prime? That
might cover some of the more general confusion here. You might also try
the excellent "E-Primer", available on Amazon.com.

If it were me I might first develop the program *without* the eye
tracking components, just to get the task design itself to work. I
would then add the eye tracking features at a later phase, testing that
out as I go. In that way I could tease apart what breaks because of my
general task programming, and what breaks solely because of the eye
tracking additions.

Good luck,
-- David McFarlane


On 2019-05-24 5:27 AM, Spape, Michiel wrote:
> Hi Katharina,
> First, o answer: no, simply ‘zm’ (minus quotation marks) should suffice. The brackets are for reserved single keys, like {ENTER}, {SPACE}, so as to not confuse them with the letters ‘e’ ‘n’ ‘t’ and ‘r’; and ‘s’ ‘p’ ‘a’ ‘c’ ‘e’. And no, I don’t think there’s an option for ANY-but-not-these.
> However, I think it’s a good idea to explore this option further. See if you can change the eyetracker to have a less wide range of response options – what kind of possibilities are there? I think in general PST codes them with numbers and bracketed options – see if the Tobii manuals (I once worked with one, but it’s been a decade) tell you what kind of possibilities there are, and then try to get the keyboard and eye-tracker response options to not overlap.
> Hope that helps!
> Best,
> Michiel
>
> From: e-p...@googlegroups.com <e-p...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Katharina Repnik
> Sent: 24 May 2019 11:46
> To: e-p...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: E-Prime doesn't recognise keyboard input
>
> Hi Michiel,
>
> yes so both the eyetracker and the keyboard are working as response input. For they eyetracker it is set to {ANY} but without a terminate action; and for the keyboard the allowable response is set to the keys Z and M. Maybe the error is here? In the field of allowable response for keyboard i simply typed zm. Do I need to put those in some brackets? I didn’t think i needed to but maybe i’m just using the field the wrong way. When either of those keys are pressed the terminate function should run and proceed to the next trial, but I want the eyetracker to keep recording until they press a button.
>
> So maybe the reason it doesn’t react is because the eyetracker is set to {ANY} and this overrides the keyboard allowable responses? That could be it. Is there a way to tell the eye-tracker to use {Any} minus ‘zm’ as response?
>
> Any ideas are appreciated!
>
> Thanks already!
> Sent from my iPhone
>
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Katharina Repnik

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May 24, 2019, 12:42:17 PM5/24/19
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Hi Michiel,

Thanks for your answers.

I kept trying to find an allowable response for the Tobii that isn't {ANY} but can't seem to find one. I tried to enter {NUMBER} as allowable response for the Tobii hoping it would free up the letters for the keyboard response but E-Prime gave me an error :( The Tobii manual doesn't seem to specify anything about the PST codes either.

I removed all tobii packages and code from the experiment and the buttons worked just fine. So it really is in conjunction with the eye-tracker.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Kate

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Katharina Repnik

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May 24, 2019, 12:45:56 PM5/24/19
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I am not quite sure what you mean re Terminate action here. 

However, I did make a copy of the experiment and removed everything related to the Tobii and all packages etc. and then the script and its buttons worked fine. So pretty likely it is to do with having two input masks there for the Probe Slide.
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