-1

Have you used Inquisit, E-Prime, DirectRT, or Qualtrics to make psychology experiments? I worked in a psychology lab as a programmer and I thought these programs felt very outdated and not user friendly. I started making a software that lets you make experiments without having to code. But posts like this(How can I create computer based psychology experiments using OS X?) seem to suggest researchers or professors don't mind learning a little bit of coding to make experiments.

Question: if you have used such softwares to make experiments, what did you think about the process? Also, do you think there are many people who would want a new software that does everything but without coding?

Thank you so much!

Community
  • 1
Maximus S
  • 99
  • 2
    The way you frame your question makes it very subjective and opinion-based, which is why it is receiving close votes. A more on-topic question may be about the specific features, advantages and disadvantages of different experimental software. The goal of cogsci.se is to produce answers that are useful to many. Currently, the goal of your question seems to be to give you information about a product that you would like to create. You have even tagged the question with "survey". –  Jul 20 '15 at 18:55
  • This is pretty opinion-based and as such may get voted off-topic. Most of the time there is little alternative to learning to code in order to create experiments; you might want to look at PEBL (Psychology Experiment Building Language), since I believe it is minimally code-ish. – Krysta Jul 20 '15 at 18:55

1 Answers1

2

Question: if you have used such softwares to make experiments, what did you think about the process?

We use Paradigm (www.paradigmexperiments.com) in our lab and like it quite a bit. You can build most experiments just with the drag and drop builder interface. It also supports Python scripting just to give you more flexibility (and piece of mind in case you're trying to do something the builder doesn't support). In general it's pretty easy, the company that makes it has been great with support when we have run into difficulty but by and large our students are able to figure it out.

...seem to suggest researchers or professors don't mind learning a little bit of coding to make experiments.

Right now almost all of the experiment presentation programs that work on OS X are scripting-based (e.g. Python) so I think that's why you're getting that impression. From my own experience it's not true. Most new RAs and grad students are pretty unhappy when they are told they have to learn Python before they can even start doing any research.

Also, do you think there are many people who would want a new software that does everything but without coding?

I think it would be very difficult to build new software that did not use scripting at all. The nature of research is that everyone is trying to do something no one has done before, so you really need to have a way for people to extend the software's functionality without waiting for the next version otherwise no one is going to use it. Having said that, Superlab (www.cedrus.com) has attempted to do it but with, what I feel, are mixed results.

neuro_labbie
  • 21
  • 1