A new jsPsych plugin for psychophysics, providing accurate display duration and stimulus onset asynchrony

Behavior Research Methods volume 53, pages301–310(2021)Cite this article

Abstract

A JavaScript framework named ‘jsPsych’ developed by de Leeuw (2015) is widely used for conducting Web-based experiments, and its functionality can be enhanced by using plugins. This article introduces a new jsPsych plugin which enables experimenters to set different onset times for geometric figures, images, sounds, and moving objects, and present them synchronized with the refresh of the display. Moreover, this study evaluated the stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) using visual and audio stimuli. The results showed that: (i) the deviations from the intended SOAs between two visual stimuli were less than 10 ms, (ii) the variability across browser–computer combinations was reduced compared with the no-plugin condition, and (iii) the variability of the SOAs between visual and audio stimuli was relatively large (about 50 ms). This study concludes that although the use of audio stimuli is somewhat limited, the new plugin provides experimenters with useful and accurate methods for conducting psychophysical experiments online. The latest version of the plugin can be downloaded freely from https://jspsychophysics.hes.kyushu-u.ac.jp under the MIT license.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

US$ 39.95

Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

  1. 1.

    The issue related to the 32-bit Chrome seemed to be resolved when the browser was updated (at least in the Chrome v. 83.0.4102.61).

References

  1. Barnhoorn, J. S., Haasnoot, E., Bocanegra, B. R., & van Steenbergen, H. (2015). QRTEngine: An easy solution for running online reaction time experiments using Qualtrics. Behavior Research Methods, 47(4), 918–929. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0530-7

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Bazilinskyy, P., & de Winter, J. C. F. (2018). Crowdsourced Measurement of Reaction Times to Audiovisual Stimuli With Various Degrees of Asynchrony. Human Factors, 60(8), 1192–1206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018720818787126

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Bridges, D., Pitiot, A., MacAskill, M. R., & Peirce, J. W. (2020). The timing mega-study: comparing a range of experiment generators, both lab-based and online. PsyArXiv, 10.31234/osf.io/d6nu5

  4. Chetverikov, A., & Upravitelev, P. (2016). Online versus offline: The Web as a medium for response time data collection. Behavior Research Methods, 48(3), 1086–1099. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0632-x

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Crump, M. J. C., McDonnell, J. V., & Gureckis, T. M. (2013). Evaluating Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as a Tool for Experimental Behavioral Research. PLoS ONE, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057410

  6. de Leeuw, J. R. (2015). jsPsych: A JavaScript library for creating behavioral experiments in a Web browser. Behavior Research Methods, 47(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0458-y

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. de Leeuw, J. R., & Motz, B. A. (2016). Psychophysics in a Web browser? Comparing response times collected with JavaScript and Psychophysics Toolbox in a visual search task. Behavior Research Methods, 48(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0567-2

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Garaizar, P., & Reips, U. D. (2019). Best practices: Two Web-browser-based methods for stimulus presentation in behavioral experiments with high-resolution timing requirements. Behavior Research Methods, 51(3), 1441–1453. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1126-4

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Pauszek, J. R., Sztybel, P., & Gibson, B. S. (2017). Evaluating Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for psychological research on the symbolic control of attention. Behavior Research Methods, 49(6), 1969–1983. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0847-5

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Pinet, S., Zielinski, C., Mathôt, S., Dufau, S., Alario, F.-X., & Longcamp, M. (2017). Measuring sequences of keystrokes with jsPsych: Reliability of response times and interkeystroke intervals. Behavior Research Methods, 49(3), 1163–1176. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0776-3

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Pronk, T., Wiers, R.W., Molenkamp, B. & Murre, J. (2019). Mental chronometry in the pocket? Timing accuracy of web applications on touchscreen and keyboard devices Behavior Research Methods https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01321-2

  12. Reimers, S., & Stewart, N. (2015). Presentation and response timing accuracy in Adobe Flash and HTML5/JavaScript Web experiments. Behavior Research Methods, 47(2), 309–327. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0471-1

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Reimers, S., & Stewart, N. (2016). Auditory presentation and synchronization in Adobe Flash and HTML5/JavaScript Web experiments. Behavior Research Methods, 48(3), 897–908. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0758-5

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Reips, U.-D., & Neuhaus, C. (2002). WEXTOR: a Web-based tool for generating and visualizing experimental designs and procedures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers : A Journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc, 34(2), 234–240. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Richter, J., & Gast, A. (2017). Distributed practice can boost evaluative conditioning by increasing memory for the stimulus pairs. Acta Psychologica, 179(April), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.06.007

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Sasaki, K., & Yamada, Y. (2019). Crowdsourcing visual perception experiments : a case of contrast threshold. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8339

  17. Schubert, T. W., Murteira, C., Collins, E. C., & Lopes, D. (2013). ScriptingRT: A Software Library for Collecting Response Latencies in Online Studies of Cognition. PLoS ONE, 8(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067769

  18. Semmelmann, K., & Weigelt, S. (2017). Online psychophysics: reaction time effects in cognitive experiments. Behavior Research Methods, 49(4), 1241–1260. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0783-4

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Slote, J., & Strand, J. F. (2016). Conducting spoken word recognition research online: Validation and a new timing method. Behavior Research Methods, 48(2), 553–566. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0599-7

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Stewart, N., Chandler, J., & Paolacci, G. (2017). Crowdsourcing Samples in Cognitive Science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(10), 736–748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.007

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. van Steenbergen, H., Band, G. P. H., & Hommel, B. (2015). Does conflict help or hurt cognitive control? Initial evidence for an inverted U-shape relationship between perceived task difficulty and conflict adaptation. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00974

  22. von Bastian, C. C., Locher, A., & Ruflin, M. (2013). Tatool: A Java-based open-source programming framework for psychological studies. Behavior Research Methods, 45(1), 108–115. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0224-y

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Woods, A. T., Velasco, C., Levitan, C. A., Wan, X., & Spence, C. (2015). Conducting perception research over the internet: a tutorial review. PeerJ, 3, e1058. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1058

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank Hiroyuki Mitsudo and Kentaro Yamamoto for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Open practices statement

The data and materials for all experiments are available at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/pj4sb/), and none of the experiments was preregistered.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Letters, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan

    Daiichiro Kuroki

Authors
  1. Daiichiro Kuroki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daiichiro Kuroki.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kuroki, D. A new jsPsych plugin for psychophysics, providing accurate display duration and stimulus onset asynchrony. Behav Res 53, 301–310 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01445-w

Download citation

Keywords

  • JavaScript
  • Web
  • Online experiments
  • Psychophysics