Our department has hung back from purchasing an experiment generator, having been led to believe on a number of occasions that a really good one is just about to become available. To evaluate the program, I listed a number of experiments which I would like to use for teaching, and set out to discover how to get SuperLab to administer them. Initial impressions of SuperLab were promising. Installation is simple, and the main program occupies 400kb on the disc. They have to decide whether the stimulus is a mirror image, and indicate their decision by pressing the appropriate key.
Reaction time is recorded.
Setting up this experiment by following the manual is straightforward, and introduces the terminology used in the program quite painlessly. Trials are made up of events and blocks are made up of trials. The trials can then be assigned to a block. When the experiment is run, the trials in the block can be shown in random order. The blocks are presented in the order in which they are listed on the screen, but this can readily be altered as blocks, trials and events can be cut and pasted.