Millisecond Software News

Inquisit 4 beta released, Mac support is here!

2012-02-21T18:25:00Z

The Millisecond Team is excited to announce the release of the Inquisit 4 beta, now available for download. With this release comes big news - Inquisit now runs on the Mac!

There are a lot of other improvements in Inquisit 4, as well, including:

Mac support!
A new and improved editor, with support for opening multiple scripts and data files, tab UI, text colorization and a script navigation window
A new data editor for viewing data files with grid UI, sorting, and filtering
Ability to right-click elements in the script and run them in isolation
Display a clock on the screen during long-running timed tasks
Support for tasks involving drawing on the screen such as Trail Making Test
Improved support for preserving relative size and scale across different screen resolutions
Support for PNG images
Improved support for administering tests in multiple languages
Present HTML pages as another type of stimulus
Dynamically create and modify the timing and content of stimulus sequences
Record a single line of summary data for each participant (in addition to saving raw data)
Full UNICODE support for improved support for Asian, Arabic, and Hebrew text
Numerous script language improvements for simpler, more flexible, and more powerful scripts

The Inquisit 4 Desktop Beta is open to anyone to use and is free. The Inquisit 4 Web Beta is open to anyone holding a web license for Inquisit 2 or 3. To use Inquisit 4 web, simply select that option in the version list when you register a script.

Inquisit 4 is backward compatible with previous versions, so download it now, and let us know if you have any problems running your scripts. Your feedback will help ensure a high quality final release.

Please see our FAQ for more details.

-Sean

Recent Additions to Inquisit Task Library

2011-11-09T15:57:00Z

Millisecond Software has been hard at work crafting new tasks for our library. Recent additions include the following well-known cognitive and neuropsychological measures:

* N-Back Task - Jaeggie et al (2010)
* Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) - Gronwall (1977)
* Digit Span - Lumiley & Calhoon (1934)
* Mackworth Clock Vigilance Test - Mackworth (1948)
* Baddeley's Grammatical Reasoning Test - Baddeley (1968)
* Test of Variables of Attention - Greenberg (1991)

We hope these scripts prove useful to your research.

Looking for a test that isn't in our library? Let us know, and we will put it on our "to do" list.

-Sean

Millisecond is hiring Inquisit script developers

2011-06-07T19:42:00Z

UPDATE: We current have all the help we need, but please feel free to send your resume if you would like us to contact you when positions open up in the future.

Millisecond Software is seeking script developers to implement various cognitive and neuropsychological measures commonly used in psychological research literature. Your responsibilities will be to determine the detailed algorithms and procedures of a given measure as described in scientific journal articles and other sources and then program the measures using the Inquisit programming language and platform. Access to journal articles can be provided to those who do not otherwise have it.

The ideal person would have basic programming skills and a working knowledge of cognitive psychology and/or neuropsychology, or the desire and ability to learn either. Experience with the Inquisit programming platform is a huge plus, but not required.

This is a flexible contract position that allows you to work from home and set your own hours. We will consider those seeking full or part time work as well as those seeking short term projects to supplement income. This is an ideal position for students and recent graduates with an interest in both software and experimental psychology.

Pay is competitive and negotiable. We prefer to pay on a script by script basis, but are open to other arrangements.

If interested, send your resume to inquisit at millisecond dot com.

Millisecond Software receives fast-track SBIR award from NIDA

2010-11-16T16:57:00Z

Millisecond Software is pleased to announce it has won a fast-track SBIR contract from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for the topic "Web Based Cognitive/Neuropsychological Testing for Substance Abuse".

Over the course of Phase I and II of the contract, Millisecond Software will develop a battery of online neuropsychological tests for the Inquisit platform, focusing on tests that have been shown to be sensitive to cognitive impairments resulting from drug and alcohol abuse, and that predict an individual's risk of substance abuse. As part of this contract, Millisecond Software will also port the Inquisit experimentation engine to non-Windows platforms, enhance its web-based tools to better support a broad variety of experimental designs, and add new features for managing and tracking respondents.

Millisecond Software at 2010 Psychonomic Society Meeting

2010-11-16T02:12:00Z

Millisecond will once again return to the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society this week in St. Louis. Look for our booth in the exhibitor's area. Drop by for free chocolate, squishy brains, or just to say hello.

-Sean

Millisecond at SPSP 2010 conference

2010-01-04T18:08:00Z

Millisecond will be at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) conference in Las Vegas at the end of the month January. SPSP is always a fun conference, and Millisecond is always looking for an excuse to go to Vegas. Drop by our booth for free chocolate, squishy brains, and information on Inquisit.

-Sean

New task library additions

2010-01-04T17:46:00Z

The Millisecond Task Library continues to grow with the recent addition of several new scripts that implement a variety of well known cognitive measures:

Hungry Donkey Task (Crone & van der Molen, 2004) - This is a version of the Iowa Gambling task designed for kids.

Self-Ordered Pointing Task (Petrides & Milner, 1982) - well-known neuropsychological measure of frontal lobe impairment.

Game of Dice Task (Brand et al., 2002) - a gambling task that measures propensity to risk.

Columbia Card Task (Figner et al., 2009) - a gambling task that measures risk-taking.

Information Sampling Task (Clark et al., 2006) - a measure of impulsivity.

Picture Story Exercise - (Schultheiss & Pang, 2008) - a measure of implicit motivation.

Special thanks to Oliver Schultheiss for providing the Picture Story Exercise script, and to David Nitz for developing all of the others.

We have many more tasks planned, so please check back. If there are any tasks you'd like us to add to the library, send an email to support at millisecond dot com.

-Sean

Millisecond at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society

2009-03-12T22:34:00Z

In eight short days, we'll once again be heading to San Francisco for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting (CNS 2009).

The Millisecond exhibitor booth will be fully stocked with the ever popular squishy brains, chocolates, and, of course, loads of information about Inquisit.

It's always a pleasure to meet the faces behind the emails, so please stop by, even if only to hello.

-Sean

Inquisit 3.0.3.2 has been released

2009-03-12T22:24:00Z

After a good long while in beta, Inquisit 3.0.3.2 has finally been released. There are lots of new features and bug fixes in here.

Full validation support for <openended> questions, including making a response mandatory and contraining responses by length, type of character, and even pattern such as phone numbers and email addresses.
Two new attributes, isvalidreseponse and iscorrectresponse, that allow responses in any type of trial to be categorized as valid and correct based on complex expressions.
Ability to specify the position of next and back buttons on survey pages.
Added ability to insert dynamic text into the response options for multiple choice questions in surveys.
Fixed a number of bugs presenting right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic.
Added numerous missing help topics.

And more. For a full list of features and fixes, see our release notes.

-Sean

Millisecond at Psychonomic Society Conference in Chicago

2008-11-12T19:16:00Z

In about 5 hours, I'll be on a plane to Chicago for the Psychonomic Society's annual meeting, where Millisecond will set up an exhibitor booth. This was the first psychology conference I ever attended as a graduate student, so I always feel a little bit of that initial excitement when I go back.

If you are there, definitely stop by the booth to say hello, have some chocolate, get yourself a squishy brain toy, and hear the inside scoop on what's in store for Inquisit.

See you there.

-Sean

Inquisit 3.0.3.1 is now available

2008-10-31T16:49:00Z

Millisecond is pleased to announce another update to Inquisit 3. This update contains both new feature and a bug fixes. Some of the highlights:

Inquisit Desktop now supports automatic registration for site license holders. A site licensed department need only register the blocks of IP Addresses assigned to their computers, and Inquisit will automatically register itself when run for the first time.
You can now specify the size for survey navigation buttons.
Survey option items have two new properties, selectedvalue and selectedcaption, that return the value and caption of the selected option.

For a complete list of features and fixes, see our release notes.

-Sean

Press Release: ASL Announces Integration With Millisecond’s Inquisit Software.

2008-10-13T19:40:00Z

Press Contact: Mike Ryan

Tel. 781.275.4000

Email: asl@asleyetracking.com

ASL Announces Integration With Millisecond’s Inquisit Software.

“Researchers Can Now Customize Eye Tracking Experiment Metrics”

Bedford, Massachusetts, USA – Applied Science Laboratories (ASL) continues its industry leadership by finding ways to assist researchers actively engaged in collecting eye tracking data with new software solutions designed to make equipment operation easier and streamline data analysis.

Successful integration of ASL’s eye tracking technology with Inquisit Software offers researchers much more flexibility in planning, executing and displaying the results of studies across the entire range of eye tracking applications.

In making the announcement, Virginia Salem, Customer Relations at ASL said, “This new integration is just another example of ASL superb technical team working with other technology partners to provide a comprehensive solution for our customers. “

Sean Draine, Millisecond’s founder is pleased that his software has tremendous synergy with the ASL eye trackers saying, “Rich integration between Inquisit and ASL Eyetrackers makes it incredibly easy for Inquisit users to calibrate eye trackers, insert more event markers into the data stream, and program dynamic visual tasks that incorporate and react to eye position and pupil diameter.”

Applied Science Laboratories has been a pioneer in the examination of human eye movements and pupil dynamics for over 30 years. ASL was the first company to develop a head-mounted eye tracker, eye/head integration, parallax-free optics, and many other features that have become industry standard. For more information, visit www.asleyetracking.com or contact the company at 175 Middlesex Turnpike, Bedford, Massachusetts, 01730 USA, Tel. (781) 275-4000.

"Millisecond Software is a technology leader in high precision software for
psychological, behavioral neuroscience, and consumer research. Millisecond
was among the first companies to leverage Microsoft's DirectX technology to
enable high performance stimulus presentation and reaction time measurement
on the Windows platform. Millisecond is the only company to enable
administration of precision timed experiments over the world-wide web. For
more information, visit http://www.millisecond.com or contact the company at
1508 E Prospect Street, Seattle, WA, 98112, Tel. 1-888-976-7770."

Inquisit 3.0.3.0 is now available

2008-07-25T18:04:00Z

Millisecond has released yet another update to Inquisit 3. This update has been cooking on the new beta burner for a couple of months now, which has allowed us to find and fix even more bugs reported by our user community.

The highlights of this release are:

Inquisit is now fully interoperable with ASL eye tracking systems. More on this later as we work on a press release with ASL.
We've release a new launch page allows participants to try alternative versions of the web control if the default does not work. This will allow you to reach even more participants using a broader range of computer configurations.
Participants running Firefox 3 no longer require administrative privileges to run the mozilla plugin version of Inquisit.
The new launch page has a slick new DHTML user interface for prompting subjects to enter an id number.
Full support for animated GIFs, which allows Inquisit to run Kip Williams' cyberball game for simulating social inclusion/exclusion.

As always, a complete list of features and bugs fixes can be found in our release notes.

Millisecond Software at SCN meeting

2008-04-08T17:10:00Z

If you are planning to be at the Society for Cognitive Neuroscience meeting this weekend in San Francisco, stop by the Millisecond exhibitor booth with any questions or ideas you have about Inquisit, or just to say hello.

We'll have chocolate on hand for those needing a quick boost of energy. And of course, we'll have squishy brain toys to help relieve conference-induced stress. These are especially helpful to have while you give your presentation.

Inquisit 3.0.2.0 is now available for download

2008-04-08T16:52:00Z

We've released yet another update to Inquisit 3 with some great new features and a bunch of bug fixes, almost all of which were prompted by feedback from our user community.

Perhaps the biggest new feature is the ability to launch Inquisit web scripts using Java Web Start. This provides a friendlier download experience for Firefox users who have the java runtime installed on their computer (those without java can still use the plugin). For now, the java option is off by default so as not to change the behavior of experiments in progress, but you can easily turn it on using the registration wizard.

Another cool new feature - Inquisit now allows participants to save their data file if for some reason Inquisit can not access the location specified in the script. This allows you to easily save your data if, for example, the paricipant's computer loses network connectivity, or your data file share computer is mistakenly rebooted in the the middle of data collection. Thanks to "Blackadder" for his impassioned plea and smart design ideas.

See the release notes for a more detailed list of features.