BAROCO Short Syllogism Test

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 15, 2025

Last Modified: January 05, 2026 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Baroco-Short, a simple syllogism-solving test to test deductive reasoning.

References

Shikishima, C., Yamagata, S., Hiraishi, K., Sugimoto, Y., Murayama, K., & Ando, J. (2011). A simple syllogism-solving test: Empirical findings and implications for g research. Intelligence (Norwood), 39(2), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2011.01.002

Duration

5 minutes

Description

Participants are given 5 syllogism questions consisting of 2 premises and are asked to pick the (only) valid conclusion from 5 provided options (only 1 can be selected). Participants are asked to spend max. 1 minute per question. By default, participants have 5 minutes to finish the task ( this timeout can be edited under section Editable Parameters). An optional timer can be presented on screen.

Summary Data

File Name: baroco_short_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
totalScore Sum of all correct responses (Range: 0-5)
radioButtons.q1.response The selected response for q1
acc1 1 = q1 was answered correctly; 0 = otherwise
rt1 The cumulative time spent on q1
(same for Q2-Q5)

Raw Data

File Name: baroco_short.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveypage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveypage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
Ui
showTimer True = each surveypage shows a timer
false = no timer is presented
false
Timing Parameters
testDuration Sets the duration of the test in ms
If you want to run the test without a 'real' time limit, set the testDuration to a sufficiently large number
300000