Getting started with NeuroTask Scripting, 2nd Edition

Preface

1. Audience
2. Typographic Convention
3. Acknowledgements

1Getting Started with NeuroTask Scripting

1. 1.1What Are Scripts and Why Do We Need Them?
2. 1.2Scripting Psychological Experiments
3. Writing Scripts
4. 1.3Scripts
5. The Structure of an Experiment Script
6. Your first script: A small experiment
7. Walking through Script 1.1
8. Script 1.2: A free recall experiment
9. Script 1.3: A shorter script with a for loop
10. White Space
11. Variables
12. Assigning Values to Variables
13. Arrays
14. for loops
15. Parts of a for loop: Head and Body
16. Increment
17. Declaring Multiple Values at Once
18. Script 1.4: Even shorter scripts with getwords()
19. 1.4You have started with online experiments!

2Capturing Keys and Reaction Times

1. 2.1Achieving Precise Timing with await()
2. 2.2Handling Various Types of Events with Await()
3. Click events
4. 2.3Await-ing Keyboard Events
5. A Simplified Script for a Lexical Decision Task
6. Key presses
7. I) Printable Keys
8. II) Any Key
9. III) Non-printable Keys
10. Event Properties
11. 2.4Measuring Reaction Time (with now(), await(), and awaitkey())
12. Reaction Time in Theory (Long-hand)
13. Reaction Time in Practice (Short-hand)
14. Reaction Times with Timeouts
15. 2.5if...then statements
16. Operators
17. Order of Interpretation of Operators
18. 2.6More Examples with Keyboard Events
19. Shift-Alt-Ctrl
20. 2.7A More Complete Script for a Lexical Decision Task

3Screen layout with “Box” and “Block”

1. 3.1Maintaining Experimental Control in an Online Setting: Layout
2. 3.2Two Standard Layout Choices in NeuroTask: Fill and Square
3. The fill layout
4. The square layout
5. 3.3Cross-Browser Layout Issues
6. Font size
7. Zooming and Text-Sizing
8. Font Type
9. Centering Text and Images
10. 3.4The Backbone of Layout in NeuroTask: Box and Block
11. 3.5Box
12. The Pre-set Box Called “main”
13. “main” is the Default for Many Box Functions
14. Customizing Boxes
15. Box Color
16. Box Borders, Backgrounds, and Fonts
17. 3.6Block
18. Adding Blocks
19. Removing and Destroying Blocks
20. Removing vs. Destroying
21. Example Block Layouts
22. Showing Text in Blocks
23. Showing Images in Blocks
24. 3.7Combining Box and Block: the makebox() convenience function
25. 3.8Deleting All Contents of a Box
26. 3.9Using Blocks as Stimuli
27. Corsi Block Tapping Task
28. Random Dot Stimuli

4Images

1. 4.1Visual recognition task
2. concat(array1,array2)
3. contains(array,element)
4. log(variable,label)
5. 4.2Image linking and uploading
6. Uploading images
7. Linking images
8. Uploading versus linking images
9. 4.3Where your images are stored
10. 4.4Preloading images
11. The preload() function
12. Preloading is Block-specific
13. 4.5Resizing images

5Style

1. 5.1Style with style()
2. Chaining of block function calls
3. 5.2Setting font size of an entire Box
4. 5.3Queries with tag name, class and id
5. Styling the background behind boxes
6. 5.4Color
7. Named colors
8. RGB and Hex
9. Opacity and transparency
10. 5.5Fonts and text styles
11. Font family
12. Font size and other text style properties
13. Font weight: bold and bolder
14. Font style: italic
15. Text decoration: underline and line-through
16. Font size and line-height
17. Text align: left, right, or justify
18. Top, left, width, height, and getshape()
19. 5.6Borders
20. 5.7Padding
21. 5.8Preset functions versus block functions

6Survey questions with form controls

1. 6.1Instruction
2. 6.2Button
3. 6.3Input
4. 6.4Using response values in scripts
5. Return values
6. The response object
7. Feedback with
8. 6.5Largeinput
9. 6.6Select, radio, and scale
10. select()
11. radio()
12. scale()
13. 6.7Check
14. 6.8Sleep questionnaire example
15. 6.9Combining controls with startform() and endform()
16. 6.10Validation

7Data logging and handling

1. 7.1Data logging with log()
2. 7.2Data that is always logged in ‘activated’ scripts
3. 7.3Data tables in your account
4. What a ‘session’ is
5. 7.4Data storage and retrieval
6. Storing ‘behind the scenes’ or storing now
7. Storing at the ‘script’ and ‘author’ level
8. increase() and decrease()
9. 7.5Working with the data tables
10. Filtering data
11. 7.6Exporting data
12. Pivot tables, or how to make your tables ‘square’ again
13. 7.7Logging, storing, and the ‘response’ object
14. 7.8Deleting data
15. 7.9Data Dashboard

8Animation and drag-and-drop

1. 8.1Animation
2. Feedback with blink()
3. Blinking other properties with toggle()
4. Using the animate() function
5. A general approach to animation with RAF()
6. Using icons with the icon() function
7. An animation loop
8. 8.2Drag-and-drop
9. Drag-and-drop basics
10. Dragging a block inside (on top of) another
11. Drag-and-drop with multiple drop targets
12. 8.3Putting everything together: A simple game

9Sound

1. 9.1Preloading sounds
2. 9.2Advanced options

10Working with video

1. 10.1Subtitles and chapters
2. 10.2Advanced options
3. 10.3Supported video options
4. 10.4Getting the video player
5. 10.5Showing the same video simultaneously in two blocks

11Graphics

12Pivot Tables

13Synchronous and asynchronous programming

1. 13.1Asynchronous programming (is still possible in NeuroTask Scripting!)
2. 13.2The waitfor .. or construction

Appendix

1. Background Code
2. Example Scripts
3. Corsi Block Tapping Task
4. Random Dot Pattern Recognition