Millisecond Forums

You will want to reset the various <picture> elements' selection pools either at the end of the practice blocks or at the start of the test blocks. In addition, you'll want to avoid dots in element names.

<block SadAngry_oefen>
/ preinstructions = (oefen, oefen_SadAngry)
/ trials = [1-16 = noreplace (Old_Sad_l, Young_Sad_l, Old_Angry_r, Young_Angry_r)]
/ onblockbegin = [values.reminder_left = "Sad"; values.reminder_right = "Angry"]
</block>

<block SadAngry>
/ onblockbegin = [
picture.Old_Angry_l.resetselection():
picture.Old_Angry_r.resetselection():
picture.Old_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Old_Sad_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_r.resetselection();
]
/ preinstructions = (test, test_SadAngry)
/ trials = [1-64 = noreplace (Old_Sad_l, Young_Sad_l, Old_Angry_r, Young_Angry_r)]
/ onblockbegin = [values.reminder_left = "Sad"; values.reminder_right = "Angry"]
</block>

<block AngrySad_oefen>
/ preinstructions = (oefen, oefen_AngrySad)
/ trials = [1-16 = noreplace (Old_Sad_r, Young_Sad_r, Old_Angry_l, Young_Angry_l)]
/ onblockbegin = [values.reminder_left = "Angry"; values.reminder_right = "Sad"]
</block>

<block AngrySad>
/ onblockbegin = [
picture.Old_Angry_l.resetselection():
picture.Old_Angry_r.resetselection():
picture.Old_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Old_Sad_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_r.resetselection();
]
/ preinstructions = (test, test_AngrySad)
/ trials = [1-64 = noreplace (Old_Sad_r, Young_Sad_r, Old_Angry_l, Young_Angry_l)]
/ onblockbegin = [values.reminder_left = "Angry"; values.reminder_right = "Sad"]
</block>

Give the attached script with those changes in place a try, please.

(In the future, please provide all files the script relies on (images etc.), so it's actually possible for me to run the script.)

My bad. Typo in the script led to two picture elements' selection not being reset:

/ onblockbegin = [
picture.Old_Angry_l.resetselection():
picture.Old_Angry_r.resetselection():
picture.Old_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Old_Sad_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Angry_r.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_l.resetselection();
picture.Young_Sad_r.resetselection();
]

Those should be semicolons.

Fixed in the attached.
(Next time, please put any images into a ZIP and attach that single archive instead of attaching dozens of images separately. Thanks!)

It works perfectly! Thanks!

Dear Dave,

I have a similar problem and have tried to incorporate your suggestions into my script. This does not solve the problem for me unfortunately. I cannot figure out where it is going wrong. Maybe you could help me. I have attached my script and the photos as a zip file.

All the best,

Leah Ritterfeld

It would be helpful if you could spell out what exactly isn't working and perhaps provide a data file illustrating the problem. I don't see any issue with the script, and the selection of items is as expected for me, see the attached data file.

Dear Dave,

the script seems to work fine but as soon as I look at the data in SPSS it turns out that some pictures were presented 3, some 4, 5, and some even 6 times. Each picture should be presented an equal number of times though (each picture 4 times in total). This is what I tried to achieve with the command "noreplace" as well as with the script part you posted above. But still, in my data, as well as in your data set, the distributions are unequal. 
See the attached picture for the SPSS case summary illustrating what I mean.

All the best,
Leah

The distribution in the data set I attached is not unequal. To the contrary, it's exactly what it's supposed to be.

You of course must only consider the two 64-trial test blocks and  need to exclude the two 8-trial practice blocks from your summary counts. Those obviously can only present a subset of images from the larger pool.

I've attached an Excel file of the data file I attached to my previous response. The practice blocks have been removed, and the data is sorted by the stimulusitem4 column. As you can see, each image is presented exactly 4 times.

I have restarted both Inquisit and SPSS and for some reason it does seem to work fine now. I have checked this two further times and the datasets from all three runs are fine. I cannot really explain what changed but for some reason it is working now. I hope it stays like this. 
Thank you so much for your help anyhow, Dave.

All the best,

Leah

I did always exclude the practice trials from the analyses. Quite possible that I forgot once but the unequal distributions kept occurring. I do get equal distributions with your dataset now as well. So I am not sure where the fault was. But it works now, weird as it is...