Practical-5

Psychology Experiment Building Language

(PEBL)

Purpose To test whether irrelevant stimuli interfere with the colour naming task.

Introduction

The Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) is a free, open-source software

system that allows researchers and clinicians to design, run, and share behavioral tests. At its

core, PEBL is a programming language and interpreter/compiler designed to make experiment

writing easy. It is cross-platform, written in C++, and relies on a Flex/Bison parser to interpret

programming code that controls stimulus presentation, response collection, and data recording.

PEBL is designed to be an open system, and is licensed under the GNU Public License 2.0. This

allows users to freely install the software on as many computers as they wish, to share their

experiments with others without worrying about licenses, to distribute working experiments to

other researchers or remote subjects without requiring special hardware locks, and to examine

and improve the system itself when it does not suit one's needs.

It began to be developed in 2002 and the first version of it (PEBL 0.1) came out in 2003. Initially

only 250 users downloaded it and only five emails were exchanged on the support email list. As

of 2012 reports, this list has gone to 20,300 downloads with at least fifty publications citing

PEBL. This is not the accurate representation as PEBL is used even without being cited and also

by the undergraduate students.

1. As a basic overview, PEBL 0.13 supports a number of stimulus types, including images

(in a variety of image formats), text rendered in TrueType fonts using both single-line

stimuli and multi-line text objects; many rendered shape primitives (lines, circles,

rectangles, etc); audio recordings, video recordings, and simple generated sounds. For

response collection, PEBL supports keyboard, mouse, gaming device input,

communication via TCP/IP, serial, and parallel port, and a software audio voice key. In

addition, timing of stimuli and responses can be recorded and controlled with a precision

dictated primarily by the limits of the hardware and operating system used.

2. PEBL provides a library of functions for general computing as well as ones devoted to

the design of experiments. These include a wide selection of functions for randomization,

sampling, and counterbalancing; data handling and statistics; standard experimental

idioms (e.g., built-in functions for messages, multiple-choice questions, many types of

commonly-used visual stimuli), and both restricted-set (e.g., press one of several \

keyboard buttons) and multidimensional response collection (e.g., free-form typed input).

3. PEBL experiments are typically run via a software launcher that allows users to select

aspects of how the test is conducted (screen resolution, participant code, etc.) and also

allows “experiment chains”; tests that can be run in sequence. The launcher is itself

written in PEBL, and so achieves cross-platform execution on any platform PEBL is

available on.

4. For use as a scientific tool, the open-source nature of PEBL has advantages over many

closed-source solutions. These advantages begin with the ability to inspect, alter, and
 redistribute the source code, so that experimenters can verify and change aspects of an

experiment, and an experimentation tool can live on even if the original developer

abandons it. Another advantage is that the development model enables using a large

number of existing open source libraries and source code developed by others, reducing

the complexity of PEBL.

5. Finally, the open-source nature means that executables can be freely distributed, allowing

experimenters great flexibility in how they conduct their tests. Nevertheless, it should be

recognized that commercial software generates revenues that can help to support norming

studies, continued software development, documentation, bug fixing, and can provide

dedicated support to customers.

Stroop Effect

The ‘Stroop effect’ was named after John Ridley Stroop who discovered this occurrence

in the 1930s. Stroop’s innovation was to show, clearly and definitively, that our embedded

knowledge about our environment impacts how we interact with it. His research method is now

one of the most famous and well-known examples of a psychological test, and is elegant in its

simplicity.

The Stroop effect is one of the best known phenomena in cognitive psychology. The

Stroop effect occurs when people do the Stroop task, which is explained and demonstrated in

detail in this lesson. The Stroop effect is related to selective attention, which is the ability to

respond to certain environmental stimuli while ignoring others.

As we understand, the Stroop effect is the degree of difficulty people have with naming
the color of the ink rather than the word itself. In Stroop’s words, there is "interference" between
the color of the ink and the word's meaning. This interference occurs no matter how hard we try,
which means that it is uncontrollable with the best conscious effort. It implies that at least part of
our information processing occurs automatically.

Importance

1. It helps psychologists understand our brains in a better way. The stroop task measures our
selective attention capacity.
2. It demonstrates how automaticity or a tendency to respond automatically interferes with
deliberate mental processing.
3. It helps in clinical cases like Schizophrenia, ADHD and Autism

Method

Subject details

Name XYZ

Age 18

Gender Female

Education qualifications Undergraduate

Hypotheses

H1: There is no difference in the errors among three conditions of the colour naming task

H2: There is no difference in the time taken among three conditions of the colour naming task

Materials required

Stroop Task (Mueller, 2011). The Stroop effect is named after John Ridley Stroop. This is

one of the most frequently used tests to measure selective attention capacity of the subject.

Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) version of the test is used in the current
experiment. The task consists of three conditions where subjects are expected to identify the

colour of the words presented on the screen.

Condition 1 Consistent. In this condition the meaning of the words and colour of the words are

the same.

Condition 2 Inconsistent. In this condition the meaning of the words and colour of the words are

different.

Condition 3 Neutral. In this condition, the meaning of the words is not related to any colours.

Plan

Administer the computerised Stroop task through PEBL to the subject. Calculate the mean

accuracy and response time of the subject while responding to the Stroop stimuli.

Procedure

The subject is seated comfortably. Rapport has to be established. After the basic

orientation to the test, the subject will be asked to start the test. Numbers 1 to 4 will be assigned

to colours such as Red, Blue, Yellow and green. The subject was instructed to identify the colour

of the word presented on the screen for a few milliseconds by pressing the assigned number on

the keypad. Few practice trails have to be given to the subject to reduce the interference of

response delay. After the trial, the subject will be asked to continue the experiment in the three

conditions with 56 trails in each condition.

Instructions

The following instruction has to be given to the subject.

“You are about to take part in a study in which you will be asked to determine the colour that

written words appear in. Sometimes, the words will be actual colour names. When this happens,
try not to respond with the written colour name, but only with the colour of the word with the

1-2-3-4 keys on the top of the keyboard. Colours assigned to each number are: 1 = red 2 = blue

3 = green 4 = yellow. Kindly respond as fast as possible.”

Controls/Precautions

● Subject should be motivated to do the test

● Any form of distraction during the test has to be avoided

● Subject should be given some practice sessions to learn the number associated with

colour.

Scoring

Effect of the irrelevant variable is calculated based on average response time and accuracy.

Results

Table 1

Table for mean response time and mean accuracy of the responses

Condition Mean Response Time Mean Accuracy

Consistent 1386.38 0.97

Inconsistent 1542.33 0.91

Neutral 1292.60 0.97

Discussion

The purpose of this test is to study that there is no difference in the time taken and errors

among the three conditions of the colour naming task. In the Stroop task, people simply look at

color words, such as blue, red, or green. The interesting thing is that the task is to name the color

of the ink the words are printed in, while fully ignoring the actual word meaning. It is difficult,
though, when the word and the ink color are different. This extent of this difficulty is what we

call the Stroop effect.

The subject is an undergraduate. She was completely focused while answering the correct

options. Sometimes, she was unable to answer as she took longer to figure out the correct option

and there was a timeout. As the test proceeded, the subject showed rejection in conducting the

test further as there were too many questions to perform which made her tired.

A mean accuracy of 1 would have indicated that the subject committed least errors 0.97

decimal value indicate the certain percentage of errors committed by the subject. The subject is

quick in dealing with consistent and neutral stimuli.

Conclusion

The hypothesis is rejected as there is a time difference in the time taken and an error

among the 3 conditions of the colour naming task.

Mueller, S. T. (2011). STROOP Task. Computer software retrieved from http://pebl.sf.net.