___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ COMPUTERIZED MATH TASK ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Date: 09-18-2014 last updated: 02-24-2022 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Script Copyright © 02-24-2022 Millisecond Software ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFO ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script implements a computerized performance-adaptive Math Task as described in: Girdler, S. S., Turner, J. R., Sherwood, A., & Light, K. C. (1990). Gender differences in blood pressure control during a variety of behavioral stressors. Psychosomatic Medicine, 52, 571- 591. and Turner, J. R., Hewitt, J. K., Morgan, R. K., Carroll, D., Sims, J., & Kelly, K. A. (1986). Graded mental arithmetic as an active psychological challenge. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 3, 307-309. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Participants work on 40 (default) subtraction problems. Each problem consists of the presentation of the problem for 2s (default); the presentation of an "=" sign (default) for 1s (default), and the presentation of an answer to the problem for 1s (default). Participants have to press one key (SPACEBAR) if the presented answer is the correct answer and simply wait if the presented answer is an incorrect answer. The subtraction problems are divided into 5 levels of difficulty (Turner et al, 1986). If participants make the correct choice, they move up a level of difficulty. If participants make an incorrect choice (or don't answer fast enough), they move down a level of difficulty. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ the default set-up of the script takes appr. 4 minutes to complete ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA FILE INFORMATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The default data stored in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'mathtask_raw*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant) build: The specific Inquisit version used (the 'build') that was run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) date, time: date and time script was run subject, group, with the current subject/groupnumber session: with the current session id blockcode, blocknum: the name and number of the current block (built-in Inquisit variable) trialcode, trialnum: the name and number of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable) Note: trialnum is a built-in Inquisit variable; it counts all trials run; even those that do not store data to the data file such as feedback trials. Thus, trialnum may not reflect the number of main trials run per block. difficulty: stores the level of difficulty of the current math problem solutionACC: 1 = presented answer is correct; 2 = presented answer is incorrect mathproblem: stores the math problem in a string without white spaces (for evaluation purposes) correctsolution: stores the correct solution to the the problem presentedsolution: stores the presented solution (either correct or foil) response: the participant's response correct: the correctness of the response latency: the response latency (in ms) list.ACC_1.itemCount- list.ACC_5.itemCount: counts the number of problems worked on for each level of difficulty (2) Summary data file: 'mathtask_summary*.iqdat' (a separate file for each participant) inquisit.version: Inquisit version run computer.platform: the platform the script was run on (win/mac/ios/android) startDate: date script was run startTime: time script was started subjectid: assigned subject id number groupid: assigned group id number sessionid: assigned session id number elapsedTime: time it took to run script (in ms); measured from onset to offset of script completed: 0 = script was not completed (prematurely aborted); 1 = script was completed (all conditions run) list.ACCoverall.itemCount: tracks the number of math problems run propCorrect: proportion correct responses (across all levels) prop_diff1: proportion of level1 problems (relative to all mathproblems) propCorrect_diff1: proportion of level1 problems correctly solved (of the number of level 1 problems given) prop_diff2: proportion of level2 problems (relative to all mathproblems) propCorrect_diff2: proportion of level2 problems correctly solved prop_diff3: proportion of level3 problems (relative to all mathproblems) propCorrect_diff3: proportion of level3 problems correctly solved prop_diff4: proportion of level4 problems (relative to all mathproblems) propCorrect_diff4: proportion of level4 problems correctly solved prop_diff5: proportion of level5 problems (relative to all mathproblems) propCorrect_diff5: proportion of level5 problems correctly solved ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ - subtraction problems are divided into 5 levels of difficulty (Turner et al, 1986; only subtraction problems): Level1: 1digit - 1 digit problems (e.g. 7 - 5) Level2: 2digits - 1 digit problems (e.g. 28 - 4) Level3: 2digits - 2digits problems (e.g. 56 - 23) Level4: 3digits - 2digits problem (e.g. 487 - 67) Level5: 3digits - 3digits problem (e.g. 359 - 128) - problems are randomly generated for each levels - participants work on 40 subtraction problems starting with a problem of midlevel difficulty (3). - depending on performance they move up (correct decision) and down levels (incorrect decision) - half the presented solutions are correct; the other half are incorrect foils Trial Sequence: a) Presentation of Problem for 2s (default) -> b) presentation of '=' sign for 1s (default) -> c) presentation of a solution (correct or incorrect) for 1s (Participants have entire time to make the choice whether the answer is the correct solution to the problem or not) d) immediate feedback for 500ms (to change feedback duration go to section TRIALS and follow further instructions) Foil Creation: (Neither Girdler et al nor Turner et al provide an algorithm of how their foils were created) Because a random generation of foils could potentially ending in very simple problems (mostly one would only have to be able to pay attention to the last digits), a somewhat more complicated algorithm was used in this script: - if subtrahend has only 1 digit OR correctsolution has only 1 digit => presented foil = correctsolution +/- 1 - if subtrahend has more than 1 digit AND correctsolution has more than 1 digit => presented foil = correctsolution +/- 10 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ math problems are randomly generated ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Instructions are provided by Millisecond Software LLC. They are not original to Girdler et al (1990) nor to Turner et al (1986). Go to section Editable Instructions for more details. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EDITABLE CODE ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ check below for (relatively) easily editable parameters, stimuli, instructions etc. Keep in mind that you can use this script as a template and therefore always "mess" with the entire code to further customize your experiment. The parameters you can change are: Response Keys: /correctresponsekey: the correct response key (default: " " -> spacebar) /fontsize_stims: size of the math problem, equal sign and presented answer in % of canvas height /mathproblemduration: presentation duration of the mathproblem in ms (default: 2000ms) /equalsignduration: presentation duration of the equal sign in ms (default: 1000ms) /mathanswerduration: presentation duration of the answer to the mathproblem in ms (default: 1000ms) Note: participants have the entire duration to respond /iti: intertrial duration: pause inbetween problems /runoperation: 1 = runs only addition problems 2 = runs only subtraction problems (default) 3 = runs mixed problems per level /maxnr_mathproblems: the number of math problems to run (default: 40)