Building Computer-Based Experiments in Psychology without Programming Skills

Abstract

Research in Psychology usually requires to build and run experiments. However, although this task has required scripting, recent computer tools based on graphical interfaces offer new opportunities in this field for researchers with non-programming skills. The purpose of this study is to illustrate and provide a comparative overview of two of the main free open source "point and click" software packages for building and running experiments in Psychology: PsychoPy and OpenSesame. Recommendations for their potential use are further discussed.

STIPRESOFT: an alternative stimuli presentation software synchronizing with current acquisition systems in EEG experiments

“…Through the software, signals can be easily decomposed according to the time stamps recorded in a behavioral file. Moreover, the developed software is novel and simple in terms of complexity compared to software that are provided free of charge [21] in the literature, and it is unpaid compared to commercial ones. And the proposed software is outperformed in terms of time latencies according to the competitors.…”

“…Apart from these, nonfree and commercial stimuli presentation software like E-Prime [14][15][16] and STIM2 [17,18] can be used in EEG experiments. Moreover, free but complicated software like PsychoPy [19] and OpenSeSame [20] can be preferred for building and running stimuli experiments in neurophysiology studies [21]. Because of their cost and complexity, these types of software may not be preferred.…”

Formación en psicología y entornos virtuales: ¿necesidad de nuevas competencias?

“…Si en cambio el interés es crear tareas experimentales en psicología o replicar instrumentos de medición psicológica en ambientes virtuales, existe la herramienta de código abierto llamada Psychopy 2 , que permite crear tareas en psicología con la ventaja de poder generar una hoja con los resultados en tiempo real de las variables que estemos interesados en medir (Ruisoto, Bellido, Ruiz & Juanes, 2016). Actualmente es posible realizar con unos pocos «clics» complejos análisis estadísticos.…”