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| The fun, inspiring scientist and his serious, literary brother. |
In the previous
instalment of this review, I channeled the tech reviewer spirit (e.g.
The Verge) whilst writing a lighthearted review of
the Chronos, PST's new, USB-powered response box. I will fully admit that I do not believe that the serious scientific stoicism that supposedly graced our scholarly ancestors is necessarily a pedagogically sound strategy, but I apologise if I over-corrected here and there. Rest assured, in the following 3000 words or so, I will provide much more useful information by ways of a Chronos tutorial. I will first shortly explain the theoretical background of an experimental paradigm we call
action-effect learning. Following, I will give a
The E-Primer style step by step instruction on how to make the experiment, for example using Chronos. I will consistently expect the reader to already know
The E-Primer by heart and will therefore not need much information on the E-Prime structure, code, attributes, and so on. Instead, the aim is that someone who is more or less versed in the ways of E-Prime will, by the end of the tutorial, be able to use the Chronos:
• As a low latency audio device
• As a response ("button") box
• As a voice volume level triggering device
• As a stimulus device (using its five multicoloured LEDs)
By that time, you will also notice my newly recovered seriousness seriously faltering, as I end the whole ordeal by ending the reviewer in classic tech style: with a conclusion featuring "grades".
A little while ago, I (Michiel) promised a review of E-Prime
on the new Surface Pro 4 (SP4). The idea is this: given that these machines are
developed by the same company (i.e. Microsoft), they should all work in rather
similar ways, so that, for once, we have that rare thing in the non-Mac
community: a common experience. Apart from the convenience in terms of
transferable user experience or bug reporting, this has obvious benefits for
experimental design and replicability in particular. Furthermore, PST did
extensive testing with the SP3, and I hope they keep that up, creating a kind
of optimal experimental experience with a single device having known benefits
and drawbacks. Finally, being into motor control and perception-action integration research, I am obviously keen on using the touch and pen in experiments.
