Spatial orientation / cueing / Posner Task - PsyToolkit

The basic phenomenon in the Posner task is that we are quicker to detect objects at places that have been cued before, that is, where previously ... Spatialorientation/cueing/PosnerTask main|experimentlibrary|copyright Introduction Aboutthisimplementation Runthedemo Dataoutputfile Download Furtherreading Introduction Spatialorientationoccurswhenattentionisdrawntoaspecific location.Attentioncanbedrawntoalocationduetotheappearance ofastimulus.Inthe Posnertask,this drawingofattentiontoalocationiscalledcueing. ThebasicphenomenoninthePosnertaskisthatwearequickerto detectobjectsatplacesthathavebeencuedbefore,thatis,where previouslyasalientstimulushasbeenpresented.Anexampleofthis canbeaflashatalocation,whichmakesyoureyesalmost automaticallymakeaneye-movement(i.e., saccade)tothatlocation. Researchersdistinguishbetweenvalidandinvalidcues.Validcues informaparticipantaboutthelocationwheresomethingtask-relevant willhappen(e.g.,aflashatthelocationwhereato-bedetected stimuluswillappear);invalidcuesoccuratalocationwherenothing relevantwillhappen. Further,thereareinformativecuesanduninformativecues.For,if thelocationofacueisrandom,itisuninformative.Insome experiments(likeintheexamplebelow),acuecanhave75%validity (in3outof4times,itoccursatthelocationwheretheto-be detectedstimuluswillappear). Validcueshavearelativelystrongeffectondetection,ascanbe experiencedintheexamplebelow.Thelargertheinformationcontent ofthecue(intheexample75%),thestrongertheeffect. Aboutthisimplementation Inthisimplementation,thereare100trials. 75%ofthetrialsarevalid. Notalltrialshaveacue Note,attheendoftheexperiment,youcanshowyourresponsetimes andcopyandpastethemtoalocalfileforyourowndataanalysis. Runthedemo Inthisexample,youwillneedtorespondtoagreencirclewith theword"go"init.Whenitappearsintheleftyellowbox,youpress thekey"a"onyourkeyboard.Whenitappearsintherightyellowbox, youpressthekey"l"onyourkeyboard.Insometrials,the"go" circlewillbeprecededbyan"x",whichyoushouldnotrespondto (thisisthecue). ClickheretorunademoofthePosnertask Dataoutputfile InPsyToolkit,thedataoutputfileissimplyatextfile.The savelineofthePsyToolkitexperimentscriptdetermineswhatis beingsavedinthedataoutputfile.Typically,foreachexperimental trial,youwouldhaveexactlyonelineinyourtextfile,andeach number/wordonthatlinegivesyoutheinformationyouneedforyour dataanalysis,suchasthecondition,responsespeed,andwhetheran errorwasmade. Meaningofthecolumnsintheoutputdatafile.Youneedthisinformationforyourdataanalysis. Colum Meaning 1 cueposition(cueleft,cueright) 2 targetposition(targetleft,targetright) 3 cuevalidity(cued,uncued) 4 cuevalidityasnumber(1=cued,0=uncued) 5 Responsetime(ms) 6 Status(1=correct,2=wrong,3=timeout) Download ThePosner-taskcodezipfile IfyouhaveaPsyToolkitaccount,youcanuploadthezipfile directlytoyourPsyToolkit account.Watchavideoonhowtodo that.IfyouwanttouploadthezipfileintoyourPsyToolkitaccount, makesurethefileisnotautomaticallyuncompressed(somebrowsers, especiallyMacSafari,bydefaultuncompresszip files).Readherehowtoeasilydealwiththis. Furtherreading Chun,M.M.(2000).Contextualcueingofvisualattention.Trends inCognitiveSciences,4,170-178. Lastupdated2021-12-2119:18:17+0100