PsyScope: An interactive graphic system for designing and controlling experiments in the psychology laboratory using Macintosh computers

Abstract

PsyScope is an integrated environment for designing and running psychology experiments on Macintosh computers. The primary goal ofPsyScope is to give both psychology students and trained researchers a tool that allows them to design experiments without the need for programming. PsyScope relies on the interactive graphic environment provided by Macintosh computers to accomplish this goal. The standard components of a psychology experiment-groups, blocks, trials, and factors-are all represented graphically, and experiments are constructed by working with these elements in interactive windows and dialogs. In this article, we describe the overall organization of the program, provide an example of how a simple experiment can be constructed within its graphic environment, and discuss some of its technical features (such as its underlying scripting language, timing characteristics, etc.), PsyScope is available for noncommercial purposes free of charge and unsupported to the general research community. Information about how to obtain the program and its documentation is provided.

Syntactic and thematic components of sentence processing in progressive nonfluent aphasia and nonaphasic frontotemporal dementia

“…All sentences were presented by PsyScope presentation software (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Provost, 1993), which also recorded response latencies to target words, timed from the onset of the target word. Analyses of latency data were conducted after extreme outliers had been eliminated (responses occurring < 100 ms or > 10 000 ms after a target word), and a 2 standard deviation filter relative to each subject's average response latency was implemented.…”

Gender differences in implicit weight identity

“…Implicit measures were conducted on a Macintosh PowerPC running PsyScope experimental presentation software (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Provost, 1993). Self-report surveys were used to evaluate explicit weight attitudes and weight identity.…”

Memory orientation and success: separable neurocognitive components underlying episodic recognition

“…In two of the four study/test cycles subjects were given 2 s to respond, in the remaining two they had 4 s. Response speed alternated across study/test cycles. Stimulus presentation and responses were controlled using PsyScope [42].…”

“…Most notably, there were bilateral increases in the dorsal aspect of the middle frontal gyri, lateral to the frontal eye fields (coordinates −42, 6, 54 and 33, 6, 48), and in the intraparietal sulci (−24, −60, 45 and 36, −69, 33). In addition, there was a joint increase in right posterior inferior PFC (42,6,24). Because these regions failed to differentiate the retrieval tasks and were insensitive to retrieval outcome, they are likely involved in working memory or perhaps retrieval mode functions similarly recruited by both tasks and will not be considered further.…”