Welcome to E-Prime E-Prime refers to the Experimenter’s Prime (best) development studio for the creation of computerized behavioral research. E-Prime is a new software suite of applications that take you through the creation of your experiment to performing descriptive statistics on your collected data.

E-Prime This is a diagram of E-Prime’s core system components. E-Studio Graphical Design Environment E-Basic Full Scripting Language E-Run Real-Time Experiment Generator E-Merge Data Merging Utility E-DataAid Spreadsheet Application for E-Prime Data Files We will now do a short tour of each component

Welcome to E-Studio E-Studio is a comprehensive visual design environment for experiment implementation. E-Studio’s graphical environment greatly speeds up the creation of an experiment. Better yet, you can implement most experiment designs without the use of code!

E-Studio - Interface The E-Studio interface has four major components: 1.Toolbox 2. Structure View 3. Properties Window 4. Workspace Let’s look at each component

E-Studio - Interface The Toolbox contains objects that are dragged to procedural timelines. These objects are the basic building blocks of your E-Studio experiments. Let’s look at some of these objects... 1

E-Studio - Interface The TextDisplay allows you to specify text, such as instructions, that the subject will see during the experiment.

E-Studio - Interface Similarly, the BitmapDisplay allows you to specify images that the subject will see during the experiment.

E-Studio - Interface The List object allows you to define the blocks, trials, sub-trials, etc. in your experiment.

E-Studio - Interface Procedure objects represent the timelines in your experiment. These procedural timelines tell the experiment what objects occur at what point.

E-Studio - Interface The FeedbackDisplay allows you to specify the feedback that your subject will receive after a response. These are just some of the objects available to you in E-Studio.

E-Studio - Interface The Structure View is an outline or hierarchical representation of your experiment. This window features a tree view similar to that in Windows Explorer. 2

E-Studio - Interface The Properties Window lists the properties for selected objects and displays their current settings. 3

E-Studio - Interface The Workspace contains the window representations of your experiment objects. An object is opened in the Workspace by double clicking the object on a procedural timeline or in the Structure View. 4

E-Studio - Procedures Think of this experiment as a hierarchy. The SessionProc procedure defines the session-level events. The BlockProc procedure defines the block-level events. The TrialProc procedure defines the trial-level events.

E-Studio - Procedures Objects are added to a procedure by opening the procedure in the Workspace and dragging objects from the Toolbox to Procedure’s timeline.

E-Studio - Procedures This is the completed SessionProc. At the session- level, the experiment welcomes the subject, runs blocks of trials, and displays a goodbye screen. BlockList is where the experiment’s blocks will later be defined. TextDisplays List

E-Studio - Procedures This is the completed TrialProc. At the trial-level, the experiment displays a fixation point, presents the subject with a stimulus, and gives the subject feedback. TextDisplaysFeedbackDisplay

E-Studio - Lists Lists are used to specify how the trials differ from one another (i.e., what factors are manipulated). This is TrialList with its opened window representation underneath it. Let’s look at the completed TrialList...

E-Studio - Lists This is our completed TrialList. The columns can list what procedure to run for a given trial, the levels of the independent variables, the actual stimulus for that trial, and what the correct answer should be.

E-Studio - Properties After creating the experiment’s procedural timelines and defining the blocks and trials, the next step is to set the properties of the objects. This will be demonstrated by examining the properties for Stimulus on the TrialProc procedure.

E-Studio - Properties The properties for Stimulus can be set via the Properties Window. For example, one can control what keys the user can hit, how long the stimulus will stay on the screen, etc

E-Studio - Properties For example, the Duration property sets the duration of Stimulus. Its value was set to 10,000 ms. This means the object will stay on the screen for 10 seconds.

Welcome to E-Basic E-Basic is not an application. It is E-Prime’s comprehensive, object-oriented programming language. It is similar to Visual Basic for Applications with many enhanced commands for behavioral research.

E-Basic In E-Studio, you create the graphical representation of your experiment. Once you have created your experiment, E-Studio converts this graphical representation into E-Basic code, so that E-Run, the real-time experiment generator, can compile and execute it.

E-Basic The Generate button on the E-Studio toolbar allows you to generate the code, or script, for an opened experiment in E-Studio.

E-Basic This is the finished E-Basic script in E- Studio’s Script Window. Because E-Studio allows you to design everything (for most experiments) using the graphical interface, you probably won’t have to look at this code.

Welcome to E-Run E-Run is E-Prime’s real-time experiment generator. It compiles E-Basic code from the experiment that you visually created in E-Studio and executes it in a real-time environment.

E-Run The E-Run button on the E-Studio toolbar allows you to compile and execute an opened experiment in E-Studio.

E-Run Here’s an example experiment structure. Let’s look at how the screens will look when the experiment is run. Fixation Welcome Screen Block Instructions Subject Initialization StimulusFeedback Goodbye Screen

E-Run Each E-Prime experiment session generates an individual data file. When you run an experiment, you first see a dialog box that asks for the subject information.

E-Run Next, you would see the welcome text followed by instructions.

E-Run Next, the experiment would run two blocks of trials. Fixation Feedback Stimulus

E-Run At the end of the experiment, you would see the goodbye text.

Welcome to E-Merge Once you have collected your data, you are ready to... Merge the individual data files into one file using E-Merge. Merge the individual data files into one file using E-Merge. View, edit, and analyze individual or merged data files in E-DataAid. View, edit, and analyze individual or merged data files in E-DataAid.

E-Merge - Interface The File List view in E-Merge is the main area of the application screen. It displays all the files contained in the experiment folder that you opened in the Folder Tree view. Use this view to select the files to merge.

E-Merge - Process Merging files is a simple process in E-Merge... Select the files to merge. Select the files to merge. Click the Merge button, and when prompted, enter an existing or new file into which to merge them. Click the Merge button, and when prompted, enter an existing or new file into which to merge them. Let’s look at an example...

E-Merge - Process Once files to merge are selected, the next step is to begin the merge operation. The Merge button on the toolbar begins this merge process.

E-Merge - Process After clicking the Merge button, a dialog prompts you for the target file. This is the file into which all the selected files will be merged.

E-Merge - Feedback That’s it - the merge operation is done. When finished, the application displays a small dialog, like this one, that summarizes the results.

Welcome to E-DataAid E-DataAid allows you to view and edit your E-Prime data. With E-DataAid, you can... View your data View your data Edit your data Edit your data Filter your data Filter your data Analyze your data Analyze your data Export your data Export your data

E-DataAid - View E-DataAid displays your data in a spreadsheet format. The columns represent variables, and the rows represent trials of data.

E-DataAid - Filter Working with a lot of data in a spreadsheet can be cumbersome, especially when you only want to work with data that meets specific criteria. The Filter button on the toolbar allows you to filter your data.

E-DataAid - Filter For example, one can filter out the practice blocks and include only certain subjects (e.g., from 4 to 7).

E-DataAid - Filter The Spreadsheet only displays the rows that fit both filter criteria. The filters are listed below the Spreadsheet in the area labeled “Filters”. The headings of the filtered columns are in white.

E-DataAid - Analyze In addition to filtering, you can generate descriptive statistics for your data (e.g., calculating means and standard deviations). The Analyze button on the toolbar allows you to analyze your data.

E-DataAid - Analyze E-DataAid displays all analyses in table format. You specify the columns and rows that you want in your table, as well as the data, such as means, that the table will contain. Clicking the Run button performs the analysis.

E-DataAid - Analyze You can save the results of your analysis by copying it to the clipboard or exporting it to a text file.

E-DataAid – Excel Plots You can click a button in E-Data Aid and export your data to Excel. The data is formatted for easy examination. The plot graphically depicts your data. You can then use the power of Excel to format you data for presentation.

E-DataAid - Export If you desire to use another statistical package, the Export button on the toolbar allows you to export the data in E-DataAid’s Spreadsheet to a text file.

E-Prime is a PST product. ® 1999 Psychology Software Tools, Inc. All rights reserved. The End