
The Black Box Toolkit Page 71 of 98
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9. STEP-BY-STEP CASE STUDY
9.1. Using the Black Box Toolkit to investigate the effect of using several different
mice as response devices in a simple visual reaction time paradigm
The best overview of the Black Box Toolkit is one where it is actually used in the field. The
case study outlined is a replication of work published by “Plant, R.R., Hammond, N.V. &
Whitehouse T. (2003), How choice of mouse may effect response timing in psychological
studies, Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers 35(2), 276-284”. Here
the researcher wants to know the contribution that a given response device has on their
paradigm in terms of presentation and response timing. In this example E-Prime is being
used, although any Experiment Generator would be likely to produce similar results.
The paradigm itself examines simple visual reaction time. A remote PC running E-Prime
displays a stimulus image and waits for a response via the mouse. Once a response is
detected the image terminates and the paradigm then displays a black screen for 500ms
before displaying the next image in the sequence.
remote PC running E-Prime
• E-Prime 1.1 SP3 (www.pstnet.com
)
• 800x600 16bit colour on a CRT monitor run at 100Hz (10ms screen redraw)
• 8x 800x600 bitmaps, 2 runs of 8 trials (not randomised)
• NEC 19” monitor running at 100Hz (verified)
• Windows 2000 SP4 with Direct X 9.0a
• Athlon 900Mhz with 128Mb 133 SDRAM
• ATI Rage graphics card with 16Mb
• 30Gb Hard Drive
• AC 97 on-board sound (note E-Primes voice key connects to its own serial
response box)
• Various response devices:
o PS/2 AMI mouse
o PS/2 OEM “unbranded” mouse
o PS/2 cherry 102 key keyboard
o E-Prime deluxe four button response box
o E-Prime microphone/voice key
Host PC running the Black Box Toolkit
• 1800 Athlon XP with 512Mb DDR RAM
• Windows 2000 SP4
• Standard parallel port (IEEE 1284) running in EPP 1.9 (switchable in the BIOS
between 1.7/1.9 modes)
• The IEEE 1284 version of the Black Box Toolkit (parallel port)
• 1x BBTK Tone Generator (3.5mm jack)
• 5x switch closure leads soldered to the primary button/key of the response device
on the remote PC (2.5mm jack)
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