Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond
Created: January 25, 2014
Last Modified: January 11, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond
Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC
This script implements a basic child-friendly Flanker Test, an inhibition test assessing a person's ability to suppress a dominant motor response. The implemented procedure is based on:
Christ, S.E., Kester, L.E., Bodner, K.E. & Miles, J.H. (2011). Evidence for Selective Inhibitory Impairment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Neuropsychology, 25, 690–701.
8 minutes
Participants are presented 5 fish in one row and are instructed to pay attention to the center fish (target). If the center fish looks to the right, participants are instructed to press a specific response key. If the center fish looks to the left, participants are instructed to press a different response key. The fish flanking the middle fish (the flankers) can either look in the same (compatible) or the opposite direction (incompatible) than the target/center fish ( all flanker fish look in the same direction).
2 congruence (congruent vs incongruent) x 2 target directions (right vs left) tested within participants
1. Practice Block: 12 trials with only targets (6 left, 6 right, randomly sampled)
2. Practice Block: 12 trials with targets and flankers (3 congruent_left, 3 congruent_right, 3 incongruent_right, 3 incongruent_left,
randomly sampled)
3. Test Block: 60 trials with targets and flankers (all 4 conditions equally often, randomly sampled)
=> number of trials can be edited under EDITABLE CODE -> Editable Values
Trial Sequence:
1. trial.flanker: trialduration max. 3000ms (default, editable)
-> trial terminates immediately after a given response or after max trialduration.
!! to adjust the size of the 5 fish on your monitor, go to EDITABLE CODE -> Editable Values and edit
parameters.fishSize and/or parameters.flankerdistance
2. (trial.feedbackStims): if errors occurred; error trialduration editable
Errors:
a) Anticipatory response: responses faster than parameters.anticipatoryresponselatency (default: 200ms, editable value)
b) Too slow: no response occuring before parameters.max_trialduration (default: 3000ms = max trialduration of trial.flanker, editable value)
c) Wrong Response: incorrect response key was pressed
Error feedback is presented in a visual (text that specifies the specific error) and auditory form (sound file).
3. trial.iti: trialduration 1500ms (default, editable)
4. (trial.rest): if number of trials indicate that a rest trial should be presented (default: after 40 trials, editable)
Fish stimuli are used from the ChildANT.iqjs script (the fish were originally downloaded from:
https://www.sacklerinstitute.org/cornell/assays_and_tools/)
Instructions are not original.
They can easily be edited in script "childflankerfish_instructions_inc.iqjs"
File Name: childflankerfish_summary*.iqdat
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| inquisit.version | Inquisit version number |
| computer.platform | Device platform: win | mac |ios | android |
| 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 |
| practice1Acc | Proportion correct and valid practice 1 responses |
| practice2Acc | Proportion correct and valid practice 2 responses |
| percentErrors | Overall %errors across all test trials (error = any response that was not categorized as valid-correct) |
| meanRT | Mean latency (in ms) of all correct-valid responses |
| percentErrorsC | %errors across congruent test trials (error = any response that was not categorized as valid-correct) |
| meanrtC | Mean latency (in ms) of all correct-valid responses to congruent trials |
| percentErrorsIc | %errors across incongruent test trials (error = any response that was not categorized as valid-correct) |
| meanrtIc | Mean latency (in ms) of all correct-valid responses to incongruent trials |
File Name: childflankerfish_raw*.iqdat
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| build | Inquisit version number |
| computer.platform | Device platform: win | mac |ios | android |
| date | Date the session was run |
| time | Time the session was run |
| subject | Participant ID |
| group | Group number |
| session | Session number |
| blockCode | Name of the current block |
| blockNum | Number of the current block |
| trialCode | Name of the current trial |
| trialNum | Number of the current trial |
| trialType | 1 = congruent, target fish to the right 2 = incongruent, target fish to the right 3 = congruent, target fish to the left 4 = incongruent, target fish to the left |
| congruence | Stores the congruence of the target and flankers (congruent vs incongruent) |
| targetDirection | Stores the direction of the target fish (targetleft vs targetright) stimulusItem.1- |
| stimulusItem.4 | The presented stimuli in order of trial presentation |
| response | The participant's response (scancode) 30 = A = left 38 = L = right |
| responseCategory | Stores the response category depending on latency and response key used ("anticipatory", "valid", "too slow", "wrong response") |
| correct | The correctness of the response (1 = correct; 0 = otherwise) a response can be correct BUT not valid (if latency is too fast or too slow) |
| latency | The response latency in ms |
| list.acc.mean | Proportion correct and valid responses in the current block |
The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.
| Name | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| responseKeyTargetRight | The response key for target fish that look to the right | "A" |
| responseKeyTargetLeft | The response key for target fish that look to the left Fish presentation | "L" |
| fishSize | Determines the size/height in screen height % of the individual fish pictures | 10% |
| flankerDistance | Determines the distance in screen width % between flankers change these parameters to optimize the fish presentation on your screen | 10% |
| feedbackStimsHeight | Determines the height of the feedback text in screen height trialNumbers | 5% |
| numberofPracticeTrials | Determines the number of practice trials in each practice blocks Christ et al (2011) ran 20 practice trials per practice session | 12 |
| numberofTrials | Determines the number of test trials Notes 1) list.trialtype controls the distribution of congruent/incongruent trials by default, the same number of congruent right, incongruent right, congruent left, incongruent left trials are run. 2) Christ et al (2011) ran 120 trials | 60 |
| restTrial | Determines the number of trials after which a rest trial is presented Christ et al (2011) presented the breaks after 40 trials trialDurations | 20 |
| maxTrialDuration | The maximum trial duration of the flanker presentation in ms | 3000ms |
| iti | The duration of the intertrial interval in ms- time between response and next presentation OR time between offset of feedbackStims and next presentation (default: 1500ms) | |
| feedbackStimsDuration | Duration of error feedback in ms | 1000ms |
| restDuration | Duration of rest trial in ms | 60000ms |
| anticipatoryResponseLatency | All response latencies (in ms) lower than this value will be categorized as "anticipatory responses" | 200ms |
Feedback |
||
| presentTestFeedback | 1 (true): performance feedback is presented during the test blocks 0 (false): no performance feedback is presented during the test blocks | |