___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ UNSOLVABLE ANAGRAMS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Date: 03-18-2016 last updated: 03-02-2022 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com) for Millisecond Software, LLC Script Copyright © 03-02-2022 Millisecond Software ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFO ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This script implements the a task of unsolvable anagrams based on Feather, NT & Simon, JG (1971). Attribution of responsibility and valence of outcome in relation to initial confidence and success and failure of self and other. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18, 173-188. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TASK DESCRIPTION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Participants are asked to solve anagrams. The difficulty of the practice as well as test items is manipulated. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DURATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ the default set-up of the script takes max. 15 minutes ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DATA FILE INFORMATION ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The default data stored in the data files are: (1) Raw data file: 'unsolvableanagrams_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. practiceDifficulty: 1 = easy practice; 2 = difficult practice testDifficulty: 1 = easy test; 2 = difficult test stimulusitem: the presented stimuli in order of trial presentation correctAnswer: stores the correct answer to the anagram response: the participant's response (as recorded) currentResponse: stores the response (as used for analysis of accuracy) correct: the correctness of the response (1 = correct; 0 = incorrect) latency: the response latency (in ms); measured from onset of anagram countAttempted: counts the number of attempted anagrams during the test (2) Summary data file: 'unsolvableanagrams_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) practiceDifficulty: 1 = easy practice; 2 = difficult practice testDifficulty: 1 = easy test; 2 = difficult test countAttempted: counts the number of attempted anagrams during the test propCorrect_practice: proportion correct solved anagrams during practice propCorrect_test: proportion correct solved anagrams during test meanRT_test: mean lateny of correctly solved anagrams during the test phase passORfail: if more than 7 anagrams were solved correctly during the test phase, the test is passed (otherwise fail) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4 experimental conditions (assignment by groupnumber): group1 = easy practice, easy test group2 = easy practice, difficult test group3 = difficult practice, easy test group4 = difficult practice, difficult test Practice Block: * 5 anagrams (order is randomly determined) * timeout for each anagram: * feedback after each anagram for 500ms Test Block: * 25 anagrams (order is randomly determined) * timeout for each anagram: * feedback after each anagram for 500ms ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ STIMULI ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ see section Editable Stimuli * Practice Items are taken from Feather & Simon (1971) * 25 test items each for difficult and easy test condition were generated by Millisecond Software. Note: these test anagrams are untested. You can easily substitute your own. Note: 1/5 (=5) anagrams for the difficult condition are unsolvable English anagrams ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTIONS ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Instructions are not original to the task. They are provided by Millisecond Software as htm/html pages and can be edited by changing the provided htm/html files. To edit htm/html-files: open the respective documents in simple Text Editors such as TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows). ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 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: /anagram_fontsize: the size of the anagrams in canvas height percentage (default: 5%) /practiceTimeout: the timeout for practice items in ms (default: 30000) /testTimeout: the timeout for test items in ms (default: 30000)