___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ LETTER FLUENCY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Date: 1-29-2015 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 runs a simple Letter Fluency Test with phonetic categories (letters A, F, S) similar to the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT). This test collects written input. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Participants are asked to type as many words as they can that begin with letters A, F, S (tested in blocked-design). They have 2 min for each letter (default). ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ the default set-up of the script takes appr. 7 minutes to complete ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA FILE INFORMATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The default data stored in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'letterfluency_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. stimulusitem: the presented stimuli in order of trial presentation response: the participant's response latency: the response latency (in ms) targetletter: stores the currently run targetletter response: stores the string response for a given targetletter response_nospaces: stores the string response for a given targetletter minus spaces estimate_wordcount: estimates word count by comparing the length of the response with and without spaces (2) Summary data file: 'letterfluency_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) estimatetotal: sum of the estimated wordcounts for the 3 letters targetletter1: stores the first targetletter (default: "A") ('first' does not refer to order in which letters were run in) targetletter2: stores the second targetletter (default: "F") targetletter3: stores the third targetletter (default: "S") estimate_wordcount1- estimate_wordcount3: estimates word count by comparing the length of the response with and without spaces for a given target letter ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 blocks: one block per targetletter each block has a timelimit of 2min (editable parameter) Word Count-Estimate: Algorithm Inquisit attempts to estimate the number of words for each letter by - replacing all spaces up to 5 with a single space - replacing all line breaks with a single space - comparing the response string that contains only single spaces with a response strings that contains no spaces at all => the estimated word count is the differences in string length plus 1 (e.g. "slug snail snake" vs. "slugsnailsnake" => 2 spaces + 1 = 3 words) Note: the algorithm only provides a rough estimate of the word count (and it does NOT check whether the words are correct) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script test letters A, F, S because of their frequency in English Different letters can be substituted under EDITABLE CODE -> Editable Values ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ provide by Millisecond Software - instructions can be edited under EDITABLE CODE -> 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: /targetletter1: stores the first targetletter (default: "A") /targetletter2: stores the second targetletter (default: "F") /targetletter3: stores the third targetletter (default: "S") /timelimit: stores the number of ms that participants have to come up with the words (default: 120000ms => 2min) /warningduration: stores the duration in ms of the warning signal to prepare participants to get ready for next round (default: 1000ms)