/PsychScript

A HTML5/Javascript library for running behavioural experiments online.

Primary LanguageJavaScriptGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

#PsychScript

A HTML5/Javascript library for online behavioural experiments.

PsychScript is intended to make the process of creating and running psychology experiments online much less bewildering. It consists of the following:

  • JavaScript functions which abstract away as much of the difficult programming as possible
  • HTML templates to create the structure of many standard paradigms.
  • CSS to make it all look pretty.
  • The necessary server-side code (PHP) to save responses to a database.

The idea is to allow users' to write one line of PsychScript to make the experiment do what they want it to, rather than a dozen of JavaScript.

For example, collecting a keyboard response, which previously would have looked something this:

var accepted_keys = new Array('a', 'b', 'c');
var response
document.onkeydown = function(event) {
    var key = String.fromCharCode(event.keyCode)
	if (accepted_keys.indexOf(key) != -1) {
		response = key
	}
	else if (accepted_keys.indexOf(key.toLowerCase()) != -1) {
		// In case acccepted_keys were given in lowercase.
		response = key
	};
};

PsychScript allows us to achieve the same with:

var response = get_keyboard_response('abc');

A definite improvement!

###Demos To see some of PsychScript in action, check out the following demos:

###Progress

Please note that this project is in development, and is not yet ready for use.

However, there are a number of templates which are fully functional, specifically versions of the classic lexical decision task, using either keyboard responses, onscreen buttons, or (in Beta) mouse-tracking. There will be online demos of these features available in the near future.

###Contribute This is a project for everyone, and all contributions are welcome.

The immediate problems to be solved include:

  • Abstracting as much code as possible away from the end user, while still allowing flexibility through the passing of arguments to functions.
  • Making it easier to create HTML as required by the experimenter (hopefully using existing open tools).
  • Testing and benchmarking, especially with regard to timing accuracy.
  • Creating templates for more common paradigms.

Looking further ahead, it might be nice someday to include the following: