CATS 4: Emotional Prosody Discrimination

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 29, 2020

Last Modified: January 02, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements subtest4 'Emotional Prosody Discrimination' of the Comprehensive Affective Testing System - Reduced (CATS-R).

The CATS and CATS-R were created by: Sarah G. Schaffer, PhD Karen B. Froming, PhD Amanda L. Gregory, PhD C. Michael Levy, PhD Paul Ekman, PhD

The script runs with mouse and touch input.

References

Emotion Processing: The Comprehensive Affective Testing System. User Manual. Published 2006 by Psychology Software Inc

Duration

2 minutes

Description

subtest4: Emotional Prosody Discrimination

Participants are presented two sentences, one after the other, spoken by the same actor and have to decide whether the emotions in the statements are the same or different. The sentences are the same but either spoken with the same emotion or a different one. The emotions used are: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, neutral. Participants work through 6 trials.

Procedure

1 Testblock of 6 trials
- 3 trials with identical sentences
- 3 trials different sentences
The order of the statements is predetermined.

Participants can select button 'same' or 'different'. Responses can be changed until 'next' is pressed.
If button 'repeat' is pressed, the statements get repeated.

By setting parameters.showadvanceButton to true, a '?'-button appears in the upper right corner.
If pressed, the next scheduled test item is skipped.

Stimuli

based on originals - can be edited under section Editable Stimuli

Instructions

based on originals - can be edited in file catsr_subtest4_instructions_inc.iqjs

Scoring

Means and Standard Deviations used to calculate z-scores are taken from the original User Manual
(see above for reference)

Summary Data

File Name: catsr_subtest4_summary*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
computer.touch 0 = device has no touchscreen capabilities; 1 = device has touchscreen capabilities
computer.hasKeyboard 0 = no external keyboard detected; 1 = external keyboard detected
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
subTest "subtest4"
age The age of the participant (if demographics were collected)
gender Female; Male; Other (if demographics were collected)
taskOrder The selected task order (if demographics were collected)
t4RawScore The number of correct responses in subtest4
t4RawScoreCorrected The number of correct responses in subtest4, corrected
in this subtest rawscores do not get corrected)
t4ZScore The z-score for the corrected t4RawScore
z-scores get calculated based on Age Means
age < 40 = age group 20-39
41 < age < 60 = age group 40-59
60 > age = age group 60-79
if no age is provided the population mean and standard deviation is used)
t4PropCorrect Proportion correct responses in subtest4
t4RT Mean response time (in ms) in subtest4; measured from onset of image until 'nextButton' is pressed
t4CorrRT Mean response time (in ms) of CORRECT responses in subtest4; measured from onset of image until 'nextButton' is pressed
Individual Responses
t4t1 Q1 accuracy (1 or 0)
t4t2 Q2 accuracy (1 or 0)
t4t3 Q3 accuracy (1 or 0)
t4t4 Q4 accuracy (1 or 0)
t4t5 Q5 accuracy (1 or 0)
t4t6 Q6 accuracy (1 or 0)

Raw Data

File Name: catsr_subtest4_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
build Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
computer.touch 0 = device has no touchscreen capabilities; 1 = device has touchscreen capabilities
computer.hasKeyboard 0 = no external keyboard detected; 1 = external keyboard detected
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
subTest "subtest4"
age The age of the participant (if demographics were collected)
gender Female; Male; Other (if demographics were collected)
taskOrder The selected task order (if demographics were collected)
blockcode The name the current block (built-in Inquisit variable)
blocknum The number of the current block (built-in Inquisit variable)
trialcode The name of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable)
trialnum The number of the currently recorded trial (built-in Inquisit variable)
trialnum is a built-in Inquisit variable; it counts all trials run
even those that do not store data to the data file.
trialCount Trial counter
subTest4TestItem The index of the selected image
testItem The presented audio file
correctResponse The dedicated correct response
1 = same
2 = different
selectedResponse 'same' or 'different'
correct Accuracy of response: 1 = correct response; 0 = otherwise
rt Cumulative response latency: measured from onset of image until 'nextButton' is pressed

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
showAdvanceButton True = advanceButton button (to skip a trial) is presented in the upper right corner as a '?'
false = no advanceButton button is presented
false