Headphone Check Procedure

Technical Manual

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

Created: January 30, 2020

Last Modified: January 01, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Headphone Check Procedure by Woods et al (2017). The Headphone Check Procedure is intended to be easy over headphones but difficult over loudspeakers due to phase-cancellation. This procedure can thus be used online for screening purposes for procedures that require headphone usage.

References

Woods, K.J.P., Siegel, M.H., Traer, J, & McDermott, J. H. (2017). Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 79, 2064–2072 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1361-2

https://github.com/mcdermottLab/HeadphoneCheck

Adam J. Parker , Zoe V. J. Woodhead , Paul A. Thompson & Dorothy V. M. Bishop (2020): Assessing the reliability of an online behavioural laterality battery: A pre-registered study, Laterality, DOI: 10.1080/1357650X.2020.1859526 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2020.1859526

https://gorilla.sc/openmaterials/104636

Duration

3 minutes

Description

Participants listen to 3 tones and have to decide which of the tones is the quietest.

Procedure

Participants work through
1. Sound Calibration: set volume so that the calibration sound can be heard comfortably
2. Test: 6 trials
- each trial randomly selects one of the 6 provided soundfiles
- participants are asked to play the soundfiles are are asked to select a button that
corresponds to the soundfile that was the 'quietest'

Stimuli

downloaded from:
https://github.com/mcdermottLab/HeadphoneCheck/tree/master/assets

Instructions

provided by Millisecond - The instructions are based on the instructions provided by
the Behavioural Laterality Project as well as information provided at
https://github.com/mcdermottLab/HeadphoneCheck

Summary Data

File Name: blb_headphonecheck_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
numberCorrectResponses Number of correct responses
propCorrect Proportion correct responses
headphoneCheckPass 1 = soundCheck passed (proportion correct >= parameters.passCriterium)
0 = soundCheck failed

Raw Data

File Name: blb_headphonecheck_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
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.
countTestTrials Test trial counter
index Randomly selected itemcounter for the test soundfile
testSound The played test soundfile
correctResponse The correct response for the played test soundfile
response The participant's response (first, second, third)
correct Accuracy of response: 1 = correct response; 0 = otherwise
latency The response latency (in ms); measured from: offset of sound

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
numberTestTrials The suggested number of test trials to run
Woods et al (2017) recommend a minimum of 6
6
passCriterium The accuracy with which the SoundCheck is passed(5/6)