___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Evaluative Conditioning Task ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Sean Draine, Ph.D. (seandr@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC last updated: 02-22-2022 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Script Copyright © 02-22-2022 Millisecond Software ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFO ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script implements the Evaluative Conditioning Task to facilitate implicit attitude formation using classical conditioning. The implemented procedure is based on: Olson, M.A. & Fazio, R.H. (2001). Implicit Attitude Formation through Classical Conditioning. Psychological Science, 12, pp. 413-417. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Participants view a slideshow of randomly presented words and pictures (or pairs thereof). They are instructed to press the Spacebar whenever a target is presented (e.g. 'Sprite'). Amongst the presented items are pairings of positive unconditioned stimuli (e.g. positive words) with a (to be) conditioned stimulus CS+ (e.g. 'coke') as well as pairings of negative unconditioned stimuli with a (to be) conditioned stimulus CS- (e.g. 'pepsi'). The pairings of UCSs and CSs (here: Coke vs. Pepsi) are counterbalanced by groupnumber. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ the default set-up of the script takes appr. 12 minutes to complete ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA FILE INFORMATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The default data stored in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'evaluativeconditioning_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. currentblock: the number of the current block stimulusitem.1: will be empty (first stim presented as clearscreen) stimulusitem.2: second presented stim stimulusitem.3: if the second presented stim was paired, this column stores the third presented stim response: the participant's response; scancode of keyboard response 0 = no response, 57 = spacebar latency: the response latency (in ms); measured from onset of second stim (2) Summary data file: 'evaluativeconditioning_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) meanRT_targets: the overall mean latency of correct responses to all targets percentcorrect_targets: the overall percent correct rate of target identifications ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ * 2 CS-UCS pairings (positive-Coke/negative-Pepsi vs. negative-Coke/positive-Pepsi) are tested between participants. Assignment is done by groupnumer odd groupnumbers run block.AABB = pairings of US-A (positive) with CS-A (coke), US-B (negative) with CS-B (pepsi) even groupnumbers run block.ABBA = pairings of US-A (positive) with CS-B (pepsi), US-B (negative) with CS-A (coke) * script runs 5 blocks - each block runs a different target (predetermined order) * each block runs 86 trials: 60 distractors, 18 targets, 4 pairings of positive UCS and CS+, 4 pairings of negative UCS and CS- order of the trials is randomly determined * default stimulus/exposure duration: 1500ms * optional Intertrial Interval that shows a blank page for 17ms Note: The script uses the following category assignments: cs A: Coke cs B: Pepsi us A: Positive us B: negative ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ all stimuli can be edited under section Editable Stimuli ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ can be edited under section Editable Instructions ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 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: exposureDuration: Controls trial duration, i.e., how many ms each stimulus remains on the screen. csPicSize: Controls size of conditioned stimulus pictures (coke or pepsi). ucPicSize: Controls size of unconditioned stimulus pictures (negative or positive). ucFontHeight: Controls size of unconditioned text (negative or positive). defaultFontHeight: Specifies the height of distractor words. defaultPicSize : Controls the size of distractor, target, and blank stimuli. ITI: optional Intertrial Interval in ms (default: 17ms)