User`s guide

E-Prime User’s Guide
Chapter 2: Using E-Studio
Page 46
However, because the ListType attribute is being used to vary the selection of words from two
List objects, and the value of ListType is resolved only at run-time, E-Studio is unable to place the
AnimalList and the FruitList objects in the structure. The ListType attribute is placed in brackets
below the DesignList, and is preceded by a to indicate that the nested List is varying. The
FruitList and AnimalList objects are placed in the Unreferenced E-Objects folder.
Colon Syntax – Sampling multiple stimuli per trial using nested lists
When a design requires multiple stimuli to be sampled from a List during a single trial, a colon
syntax is used to indicate the number of exemplars to be sampled. The colon syntax places a
colon and a number after the attribute name within the bracket notation (e.g., [AttrName:1]).
When the colon syntax is not used, a single exemplar is sampled by default (i.e., not using the
colon syntax is equivalent to [AttrName:0]). When a colon and a number are placed after the
attribute name within the bracket notation, the number used indicates the number of stimuli being
sampled during the same trial in addition to the default. For example, the use of [AttrName:2]
would result in the sampling of three exemplars from the List during the same trial.
For the example experiment, perhaps the task might be modified to present two words or non-
word strings at the same time instead of just one. If the stimuli are to be sampled from the same
List, the colon syntax must be used. By changing the Stimulus attribute values to use the colon
syntax (Figure 1 below), two stimuli will be chosen per trial from the List named in the Nested
column, and assigned as the value of the Stimulus attribute (i.e., two stimuli will be displayed on
the same line). Alternatively, a second attribute could be created and used to display the second
exemplar (Figure 2), which would allow for more flexibility in the display (e.g., displaying
Stimulus2 on the line below Stimulus).