Pause experiment?

[Ingeborg Sophie Ribu]

Dear all,

I am an autodidact e-primer, but there are a few things I have not been able to figure out on my own yet, so that's why I'm asking you (only two others in my department use E-prime and they couldn't help me either).

Is it possible to pause the experiment at any time you want while running it? I work with dementia patients and older adults, and they often get confused or tired and may need a break in addition to the brakes I have already programmed. Is there a "play/pause button" I can use to take a timeout in the experiment and start over at the same time later? Or is it even possible to start the experiment at any given point, or do I always have to start from the top when I start the experiment. Say, the experiment consists of 5 subtests and during the third subtest an informant tells me that she wants to continue the next day, can I start up the experiment at subtest 3 the next day, or do I have to go through test 1 and 2 with her again when I come back?

I know breaks like this will influence the overall results, but we do take that into account. After all, it is quite common for patients with dementia to loose track of what they are doing.

Hope you can hlp me!

Kind regards,
Ingeborg

[JoAnn Silkes]

Hi, Ingeborg -
I haven't found a way to pause and resume, but when I'm concerned about needing frequent breaks (I also work with a clinical population), I build in the opportunity for breaks after every item, usually in the form of a blank screen set for 'infinite' duration. If they're ready to move ahead I can just press a key to continue to the next trial, but if they need a break then it's readily available, and even if they don't need a break it helps me to pace the session to match what they're able to do. I also put different subtests into different protocols for exactly the reason you describe; if they need to come back the next day to finish it, I don't want to have to repeat what they've already completed. It's easiest just to build a separate protocol for each section.
Hope that helps.
JoAnn.

[Ingeborg Sophie Bjønness Ribu]

Hi JoAnn,

thanks for your answer and sharing your experiences! Oftentimes the easy solution is also the best :)

- Ingeborg

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[Paul Groot]

If pressing a key at the end of each trial is problematic, you could also insert a small inline that checks if the user break key combination (ctrl+shift) was pressed before. (Searchthe E-Basic help documentation for GetUserBreakState). If it is 0 you could set the duration of a blank waiting screen to zero, or set it to -1 (infinite) otherwise. You would also have to reset the state after continuing (SetUserBrakeState).

Best,

Paul

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[Ingeborg Sophie Bjønness Ribu]

Thanks, Paul. I will try this as well!

- Ingeborg

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[José Luis Salas]

Dear Ingeborg,

I'm in a similar dilemma. Would you be so kind and share knowledge on how to solve it?

Thanks a lot.

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JOSÉ LUIS SALAS HERRERA

Psychologist

MSc Clinical Psychology

Ph.D. in Linguistics in course

Phone: 56 - 9 - 81974833

[Ingeborg Sophie Bjønness Ribu]

Hello José,

I ended up creating different short Experiments. So instead of creating one Experiment and add a pause half way, I made two Experiments which forced the participants to take a break when I started up the next part.

It seems to me that it's not possible to pause the Experiment and start it again from the same Place later on.

Hope this was helpful!

Ingeborg

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[JACanterbury]

Not exactly what you were asking for but my solution to giving the ppt a break is to offer them breaks periodically. e.g. if there are 100 trials, then offer them a break every 20 trial (or whenever)

This is easy to do,

create a couple of variables - stick this on the Use tab of the Script window
'
' global variable to keep track of what row we're on
'
Dim trialCounter As Integer
Dim restEvery As Integer

Add an inline code block in your trial loop :-

trialCounter = trialCounter +1
'debug.print trialCounter

' This example will stop repeatedly after every restEvery occurances e.g.
restEvery = 4 ' but If you only want to stop once, say in the middle, then you might want to do this instead
'restEvery = TrialList.Size / 2
'
' make sure we don't pause if we're on the last row
If  trialCounter = TrialList.Size Then
    GoTo LabelJump
End If

'
' in this example, we'll pause after every 'restEvery' trials
If trialCounter Mod restEvery <> 0 Then
    ' don't pause yet, so jump over the following 'pause' text screen
    GoTo LabelJump
End If

Add a label to jump to and just before the label put a TextDisplay with a pause messag eon it. See attached screenshot.

HTH,

cheers,

John

[JACanterbury]

ps - you'll need to initialise trialcounter on an inline code block at the beginning

trialCounter = 0

(also that should have read USER tab, not use tab)

[Ingeborg Sophie Bjønness Ribu]

Amazing! Thanks!
That's a good solution, actually :)

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