User`s guide

E-Prime User’s Guide
Chapter 2: Using E-Studio
Page 15
For the lexical decision experiment, the fixed and varying properties can be summarized in the
following table:
Object Fixed Properties Varying Properties
Fixation
• Present “+” in the center of the screen
• Duration = 1 second (default)
• Forecolor = black (default)
• Background color = white (default)
Probe
• Display in center of the screen (default)
• Duration = 2 seconds
• Input keys = “1” and “2”
• Terminate display upon response
• Forecolor = black (default)
• Background = white (default)
• Stimulus (e.g., “cat”, “jop”, etc.)
• Correct response = “1” or “2”
Fixed display text. For the fixation stimulus, specifying the fixed text “+” for the fixation is a
must. This is done by typing the “+” in the text area of the Fixation TextDisplay object.
Varying display text. For the Probe stimulus, the text varies from trial to trial. To specify a
varying property, create an attribute in a List object, assign values to the levels (i.e., rows) of that
attribute, and then refer to the attribute in other objects. In this case, the text string is specified in
the Stimulus attribute (column) of the DesignList. To reference the attribute, enter the attribute
name enclosed in square brackets [ ] . Entering [Stimulus] refers to the attribute Stimulus that
can be assigned multiple values (e.g., “cat” or “jop”). The Stimulus attribute (i.e., [Stimulus]) is
entered into the Text field of the Probe object to present different strings across trials. On a given
trial, a row is selected from the List object, the value of the Stimulus attribute is determined (e.g.,
“cat” or “jop”), and this value is substituted for [Stimulus] on the Probe object.
Non-default properties. In E-Prime, property settings are changed using fields on Property
pages. For the Probe display, the Duration/Input Property page is modified to set the Duration to
2000 in order to allow up to 2 seconds (2000 milliseconds) for the stimulus to be displayed. The