BeanFest

Technical Manual

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

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

The script implements the 'Bean Fest Paradigm' developed by Fazio et al (2004) to study attitude formation and subsequent generalization.

References

Fazio, R. H., Eiser, J. R., & Shook, N. J. (2004). Attitude formation through exploration: Valence asymmetries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 293-311.

Duration

20 minutes

Description

Participants are presented beans of various oval shapes with various speckles and they have to learn which of these beans to choose to gain points and which of these beans to reject to avoid the loss of points. Participants either accept or reject a bean using 2 keys on the keyboard. A test phase presents familiar and novel beans.

This script uses points and full feedback. Participants start with 100 points and gain or lose 10 points with each bean. There is no time penalty. Each of these parameters can be easily modified.

Procedure

Beans vary along 2 dimensions:
1. circular -> oval (in 10 steps)
2. number of speckles: 1-10
=> 100 possible combinations
=> 6 regions with 5-7 beans (36 beans total) are selected for the Learning Phase (Fazio et al, 2004, p.295).
=> 3 regions add points; 3 regions subtract points (if chosen)
!!! by using groupids '1' and '2', the regions are counterbalanced

(I) Learning Phase:
A. Practice: 6 trials; one bean randomly selected from each of the 6 regions
B. 1. Learningblock:
The first 12 trials present 2 beans from each region.
The remaining 24 trials present the remaining beans in a random order
C. 2. Learningblock: all 36 beans presented in random order (block is repeated as many times as specified by parameters.maxlearningtrials)

(II) Test Phase (in this script):
100 trials: tests all learning beans and new beans (=remaining beans)

Stimuli

100 beans that vary along the dimensions circular shape and number of speckles (see under EDITABLE STIMULI)

Instructions

see under EDITABLE INSTRUCTIONS

Summary Data

File Name: beanfest_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
totalPoints Stores the total points earned ( in the default set up no total points are earned/lost during test block)

Raw Data

File Name: beanfest_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.
response The participant's response (scancode of response buttons)
32 = D
37 = K
latency The response latency (in ms); measured from: onset of picture
totalPoints Stores the total points
currentbean Stores the current bean image
values.currentbeanValue Assigns the current beanvalue according to group

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
Design
maxLearningTrials Sets the maximum number of learning trials108
startingPoints The number of points the participant starts with at the beginning of the game50
maxPoints The maximum number of points that a participant can have100
positivebeanValue The number of points gained by eating a good bean10
negativebeanValue The number of points lossed by eating a bad bean-10
timeValue The number of points lost on each trial as a function of time0
fullFeedback Whether to display hypothetical effect of rejected beanstrue
Timing Parameters
timeout The number of milliseconds the participant is given to respond to a bean5000
feedbackDuration Length of time in ms that feedback remains on the screen5000