An introduction to experiment building with OpenSesame

Semester

Semester 2, 2023-2024

Type of course

Methodological and Practical Courses

Date

March 13, March 14 and March 15, 2024

Location

Online

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Duration

3 days

Maximum number of participants

20

ECTS

0.5 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Eduard Ort (Heinrich-Heine University Dusseldorf), Fabrice Parmentier (University of the Balearic Islands)

Content

Modern psychological science relies heavily on computerized experiments. Furthermore, being able to program one’s own experiments (with free and easy-to-understand software) provides researchers with freedom, independence, and flexibility. Therefore, this workshop will introduce students to building their own experiments by using OpenSesame (Mathôt, Schreij, & Theeuwes, 2012). OpenSesame is a free program for the easy development of behavioral, offline and online experiments in (social) psychology. In the first part of the workshop,we will give a brief summary of OpenSesame generally, before we will create a simple but complete psychological experiment (a gaze-cuing task). In the second part, we will look into how to run online experiments with Osweb, a javascript implementation of Opensesame. In the final part of the workshop, we will explore the possibilities to create simple, but powerful questionnaires in Opensesame, and further practice the use of this software. For the final day, participants are also free to suggest topics that they would like to be covered in more detail. 

Preliminary Program*

Day 1

8:30-09:00 Walk-in & installation support 

09:00-11:00 Introduction to OpenSesame, Creating a gaze-cuing experiment 

11:00-11:30 Break 

11:30-13:00 Creating a more advanced experiment, including Python scripting 

Day 2 

8:30-09:00 Evaluation and Q&A about second day 

09:00-09:45 Pros and cons of online experimenting, Introduction to OSWeb for online experimenting

09:45-13:00 Creating a basic task compatible with OSWeb, introduction to use Javascript within OSWeb, using JATOS to host & distribute experiments, practice advice for online experiments (interrupted by a break) 

Day 3 

8:30-09:00 Evaluation and Q&A about first day 

09:00-11:00 Introduction to forms in Opensesame 

11:00-11:30 Break 

11:30-13:00 Practice the usage of forms in Opensesame Building more experiments

Learning goals 

1. Getting to know OpenSesame as a free and easy-to-use program to build experiments and to run them either in the lab, in the field, or online. This refers to all kinds of experimental designs, including experiments in the field of social, organizational and applied psychology.
2. Familiarizing with the use of OpenSesame by building example experiments.
3. Understand how forms can be used to build questionnaires.
4. Understand how Osweb can be used for online experimenting, which features of OS are available for online experiments, and how to export a task to JATOS.
5. Knowing where and how to download the software, ask for help, and use the users forum.

Preparation 

In preparation for the workshop, participants are asked to download and install the latest version of OpenSesame on their computers. Please be aware that the online character of this workshop makes it quite difficult to troubleshoot any issues. We therefore strongly encourage participants to set up OpenSesame well before the course starts (this is particularly true for Mac users). In the days leading to the workshop, we will also be able to provide support via email. Note that there are different ways to install Opensesame. If one way does not work, you could try another one. Feel free to contact me, in case you have issues installing the software. 

Download links and instructions can be found here:

• https://osdoc.cogsci.nl/4.0/download/

Participants may ask for advice on developing experiments for their own research. To make use of this opportunity, they should prepare questions and be able to clearly explain their design. 

Literature 

Mathôt, S., Schreij, D., & Theeuwes, J. (2012). OpenSesame: An open-source, graphical experiment builder for the social sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 1–314–324.